Analysis The paradox of growth critique: Narrative analysis of the Finnish sustainable consumption and production debate Annukka Berg ⁎, Janne I. Hukkinen Department of Social Research, Snellmaninkatu 10, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland abstract article info Article history: Received 26 January 2011 Received in revised form 17 August 2011 Accepted 29 September 2011 Available online 26 October 2011 Keywords: Narrative policy analysis Degrowth Sustainable economy Eco-efficiency Economic growth Sustainable consumption and production Academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate. To date, however, literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention. This article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of Finland's Committee on sustainable consumption and production. Narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases. By tracing and comparing the different stories, non-stories and counterstories in the debate, the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions. We found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth-bound economic system. From the perspective of narrative policy analysis, however, this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which, paradoxically, leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories. We suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is es- sential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability. Robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Academic literature on sustainable degrowth has recently surged in ecological economics and related fields, marking the comeback of the economic growth debate (e.g. Baykan, 2007; Fournier, 2008; Latouche, 2010; Martínez-Alier et al., 2010; Schneider et al., 2010; van den Bergh, 2010). The two international Conferences on Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity have been gatherings of a diverse group of actors including researchers, practi- tioners and members of the civil society. However, social scientific contributions to the debate have been mainly theoretical (e.g. Four- nier, 2008; Latouche, 2010; Martínez-Alier et al., 2010). Many analysts make the intuitively appealing assumption that growth critique curtails the power of the growth story (Baykan, 2007; Fournier, 2008). Yet when we analyzed interviews conducted with members of the Finnish Committee on sustainable consumption and production (SCP), we were surprised to see how common it was among the interviewees to criticize the current growth-bound eco- nomic system. The SCP Committee was a typical Finnish ad hoc forum with representation from a wide range of organizations. It can be seen to reflect discourses and narratives that are broadly shared among key stakeholders for SCP policies and the Finnish soci- ety in general. To our surprise, almost all interviewees disparaged the prevailing growth-oriented economic system, including those representing business organizations and the Ministry of Finance. Our question was: Are we witnessing weakening support for the growth paradigm in Finland? And if so, why has such a major change in the discourse of the policy elite had such a minor impact on policy (see, e.g., Berg, 2011)? We probed these puzzles with narrative policy analysis. The meth- odology, as developed particularly by Emery Roe (1992, 1994), ap- plies contemporary literary theory to difficult policy issues. It emphasizes the role of narratives in public policy and allows one to reformulate intractable — i.e., complex, uncertain and polarized — policy problems to more amenable ones. From our perspective, the interesting point is the role the narrative approach gives to hopes, criticisms and other types of so-called nonstories that fall beyond the “what will happen” of real stories. While one would presume crit- icism in particular to undermine the position of the dominant story, narrative policy analysis claims that the effect is just the opposite: nonstories increase uncertainty and often also complexity, which just strengthens the dominant narrative(s). A narrative policy analysis of the Finnish case has potentially much to contribute to the degrowth debate. We seek to specify the contributions with the following questions: (1) How does the growth story cope in the face of accelerating criticism? (2) What forms does the criticism take? (3) Are there any alternatives to the growth story (also known as counterstories)? (4) What are the policy impli- cations of the analysis? We analyzed an empirical material consisting of 20 focused interviews with representatives from ministries, NGOs, academia and business. We found that the criticism against the cur- rent growth-bound economic model, the propositions for eco- Ecological Economics 72 (2011) 151–160 ⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: + 358 50 367 4996; fax: + 358 9 191 24564. E-mail addresses: annukka.berg@helsinki.fi (A. Berg), janne.i.hukkinen@helsinki.fi (J.I. Hukkinen). 0921-8009/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2011.09.024 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon