Mission Impossible? Neoliberal Subjects and Empowerment

My contribution today has two immediate contexts. First, in an ongoing multidisciplinary research project “The Power of Culture in Producing Common Sense (POWCULT)”, funded by the Academy of Finland (2007-2010), I have for some time now tried to comprehend the mechanisms of contemporary power in late-modern societies. Second, I have become loosely involved in a new green-red Finnish social movement that unites civil activists, politicians from social democratic, leftist and green parties, researchers and others who are against neo-liberalism. The movement uses for itself the title “Freedom to choose otherwise”. In both the POWCULT research project and in this emergent political movement, I have frequently wondered about the paradox of contemporary Finnish politics that can be formulated in the following way: If people in all opinion polls, at every turn, indicate that they support anti-neo-liberal objectives, why do they equally persistently, in elections, cast their votes for those who implement neo-liberal policies?