A Cultural Approach to Politicization of Science: How the Forestry Coalition Challenged the Scientific Consensus in the Finnish News Media Debate on Increased Logging

Abstract Politicization of science is often described as the process of political actors overemphasizing scientific uncertainty to cast doubt on a scientific consensus. We argue that in addition to exploiting the inherent uncertainty of science, actors resort to so-called technical and national arguments to politicize science. Applying the pragmatic sociology of Boltanski and Thévenot and the method of discourse network analysis to Finnish news media debate on forest policy (2015–2020), we analyze the different modes of valuation used by the so-called forestry coalition to defend increased logging and politicize the broad scientific consensus on its harmful environmental impacts. Technical arguments appeal to the common principles of technical efficiency, productivity and expertise, while national arguments invoke shared, cultural ideas of Finnish forestry. We conclude that pragmatic sociology carries considerable potential to improve our understanding of the broader cultural factors that lay the foundation for successful politicization of science.


Introduction
Politicization of science is typically defined as the process in which political actors emphasize the inherent uncertainty of science to cast doubt on the existence of a broad scientific consensus (Bolsen and Druckman 2015;Jasanoff 1987;Oreskes and Conway 2010;Sarewitz 2004).This definition of politicization of science is grounded mainly in empirical studies concerning the US political context where appealing to the uncertainty of science has been a successful discursive strategy to challenge the scientific consensus on issues such as climate change, tobacco smoking and acid rain (Farrell 2016;Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman 2008;McCright and Dunlap 2003;Oreskes and Conway 2010).
Our aim is to bring forward existing research on politicization of science and gain a more nuanced understanding of the varied ways in which political actors challenge the scientific consensus in public debates.We argue that the dominant definition does not capture the more mundane, culturally embedded ways of politicizing science in current political debates.Previous studies have also mainly treated politicization of science as strategic action whereby actors are driven by economic interests, effectively neglecting the role of cultural factors in politicization of science.Previously, such factors have been shown to matter not only for tracing the deep roots of natural resource conflicts, but for explaining why such conflicts often reproduce (Hellstr€ om 2001;Wilson 1997).We argue that more attention should be given to how politicization of science emerges from the local political context and its established notions of value (Lamont and Th� evenot 2000;Lamont 2012).
We use the analytical framework of pragmatic sociology (Boltanski andTh� evenot 1999, 2006;Th� evenot 2007Th� evenot , 2014) ) to analyze politicization of science from a cultural perspective.Pragmatic sociology examines the ways in which actors solve conflicts in everyday situations and political debates.Central to this framework is the conception of there being multiple systems of valuation based on which actors voice critique and justify their positions.We focus on two of these systems: public justification where arguments are justified by referring to common moral principles such as environmental sustainability, technical efficiency and free markets (Boltanski andTh� evenot 1999, 2006), and familiar affinities where arguments are justified by appealing to personal attachments of individuals, such as shared cultural ideas and experiences (Th� evenot 2007(Th� evenot , 2014)).These multiple modes of valuation, representing legitimate ways of justifying arguments, are used by political actors to qualify situations and coordinate social action (Centemeri 2015).
In this study, we show how science can be effectively politicized by the use of different modes of valuation which constitute powerful cultural tools (Swidler 1986) that political actors may exploit to challenge the scientific consensus.By demonstrating how actors resort to multiple modes of valuation to politicize science, pragmatic sociology offers useful analytical tools to analyze culturally embedded processes of valuation in environmental and natural resource conflicts across different cultural contexts (see Centemeri 2015).
We apply the method of discourse network analysis by Leifeld (2017) to study arguments that political actors made in 2015-2020 in the Finnish news media to defend or oppose increased logging.For studying politicization of science, Finnish forest policy represents an intriguing case.First, the cultural context of Finland-consensual political system with corporatist political culture (Vesa, Kantola, and Binderkrantz 2018)-differs from previous research that has mainly focused on the US.Second, recent studies suggest that science occupies a rather weak position in Finnish forest policy.The environmental administration and independent experts are regularly sidestepped in Finnish forest policy making (Kr€ oger and Raitio 2017) and the legitimacy of scientists is often undermined in Finnish public debate on forest policy (Toivanen 2021).Indeed, Finland's forest and bioeconomy strategies that came out in 2014 ran against prevailing scientific knowledge about the harmful impacts of increased logging on Finland's forest carbon sink and biodiversity (BIOS 2017;Kalliokoski et al. 2020;Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2017;Soimakallio et al. 2016;Soimakallio et al. 2021), generating intense public disputes about these strategies.Third, the case illuminates the consequences of politicization of science: after years of decline, Finland's forest carbon sink has collapsed by 2021 (LUKE 2022), violating international commitments, imposing financial sanctions, and making the achievement of Finland's ambitious climate agenda more costly.Our analysis concentrates on the period from the announcement of the government strategies to the collapse of carbon sinks.
The next section presents an overview of previous literature on politicization of science, followed by a description of the analytical framework of pragmatic sociology and how it applies to the analysis of politicization of science.The third section describes our empirical case, focusing on the scientific aspects of the debate over increased logging.The fourth section presents our data and methods before summarizing our key findings in the fifth section, namely how the forestry coalition used so-called technical and national arguments in the news media debate to challenge the broad scientific consensus about the harmful negative impacts of increased logging.Finally, we conclude by discussing our contribution to the literature on politicization of science and research on forestry and environmental policy discourse.

Literature Review
Science has always been close to politics through its organization and embodiment of the interests of various actors and institutions (Gauchat 2012).But while the role of scientific knowledge in policy making and the need to demonstrate the policy impact of science have both grown, politicization of science has also increased (Ojanen et al. 2021;Pielke 2010;Sarewitz 2004;Weingart 1999).In the science-policy literature, "politicization of science" typically refers to the discursive process wherein actors overstate the inherent uncertainty of science to cast doubt on an overwhelming scientific consensus (Bolsen and Druckman 2015;Jasanoff 1987;Oreskes and Conway 2010;Sarewitz 2004).This definition warrants some clarification.
First, such politicization of science differs from processes where actors frame scientific knowledge differently without challenging the scientific consensus (Bolsen and Druckman 2015).When actors assess the seriousness of scientific findings differently, suggest contrasting solutions or assign responsibility to different sources, such instances do not imply politicization of science.We acknowledge that there are alternative conceptions of "politicization of science" as the term is loosely used to refer to different empirical phenomena in everyday language as well as in research literature.These include, for instance, the selective use of science to pursue political goals (Cairney 2019), the raise of public attention to scientific knowledge to push policy makers to take action (Crossgrove Fry et al. 2019), and scientists stepping into politics instead of idealistically sticking to policy (Pielke 2004).However, we follow the dominant definition of politicization of science where political actors aim to challenge scientific consensus.This definition clearly departs from using science to advocate for some goal (politicizing issues with science) and the broader association between science and politics in society (political organization of science).
Second, previous literature states that politicization of science corresponds to evoking uncertainties in scientific work.The inherently probabilistic nature of scientific inquiry allows for exploiting such inherent uncertainty to politicize science and postpone policy action in policy domains that involve powerful interests (Freudenburg, Gramling, and Davidson 2008;Pielke 2004;Sarewitz 2004).Often, political actors exploit media consolidation and journalistic norms to spread competing hypotheses or results that deviate from scientific consensus (Schmidt-Petri 2017; Boykoff and Boykoff 2004).Research in the US political context has shown how actors such as conservative think tanks and corporations have successfully resorted to such political communication to raise strong doubt among the American public about the credibility of scientific findings concerning anthropogenic climate change (Farrell 2016;McCright and Dunlap 2003;Oreskes and Conway 2010).
However, there is some evidence that appeals to scientific uncertainty are becoming rarer in public debates.A recent study by Supran and Oreskes (2021) showed how the fossil fuel company ExxonMobil has shifted toward more sophisticated, subtle ways of undermining and delaying the need for effective policy action instead of emphasizing scientific uncertainty.Examples include highlighting the risks that climate change poses for energy production and the behavior of individuals over the responsibility of fossil fuel companies.Another study by Lamb et al. (2020) also emphasized the growing role of 'discourses of climate delay' that do not directly deny the existence of climate change, but use subtler ways to postpone climate action, such as redirecting responsibility and highlighting technological solutions.Even if appealing to scientific uncertainty occurs less often, we cannot assume that politicization of science is completely gone from the public sphere.
While we agree that the term "politicization of science" should only refer to processes where the scientific consensus is challenged, we propose that this can also occur through other means than evoking uncertainty of science.While politicization of science is predominantly treated as strategic action that actors undertake to guard their interests such as economic ones (Farrell 2016;Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman 2008;McCright and Dunlap 2003;Oreskes and Conway 2010), from the viewpoint of pragmatic sociology, reducing the process to economic interests fails to account for the role of culture: how political actors resort to multiple systems of valuation in political argumentation in order to convince others (Th� evenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000, 274).
We therefore propose a cultural approach to politicization of science.Pragmatic sociology allows for considering the role of broader cultural factors in politicization of science, which has been missing from previous research.In the following, we outline our analytical framework.

Analytical Framework
Our analytical framework is based on pragmatic sociology, drawing on justification theory (Boltanski andTh� evenot 1999, 2006) and sociology of engagements (Th� evenot 2007(Th� evenot , 2014)).Pragmatic sociology analyzes the ways in which actors build agreement and voice critique in public debates.According to pragmatic sociology, conflicts are solved by referring to multiple systems of valuation which are shared by actors in a specific society.By focusing on observable social practices-in our case, on political argumentation in the public realm of the news media-pragmatic sociology deviates from other cultural approaches such as Cultural Cognition (Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, and Braman 2011) that focuses on the role of individual-level psychological mechanisms in the interpretation of scientific knowledge.
Following our framework, there are three distinct systems of valuation: public justification, familiar affinities and individual interests.We refer to these as modes of valuation used in political argumentation (see Centemeri 2015;Eranti 2017).In our case, their use can be empirically studied by looking at how actors refer to the different systems of valuation in their public argumentation about increased logging.
The system of public justification is developed in the work of Boltanski and Th� evenot (2006).The authors argue that to solve political disputes, individuals need to put aside their particular interest and justify their positions by referring to a limited set of "higher common principles" (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006, 140-141).Boltanski and Th� evenot describe seven "common worlds" based on which individuals can justify their positions.Each world carries a distinct conception of what is worthy, important, and best for the common good, and these criteria are used to qualify objects in the material world.
In this article, we describe five of these common worlds as they were visible in the Finnish news media debate on increased logging.In the industrial world, technical efficiency is the main basis of valuation (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006, 203-211).Productivity, technical performance and expertise are considered important principles, along with scientific proof.The environment is valued the most in the green world (described in Lafaye, Th� evenot, and Thevenot 1993).The values of environmental sustainability and biodiversity, as well as harmony between human societies and nature are stressed.In the market world, competition is the most important moral principle (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006, 193-203).Free markets, commercial goods and wealth are valued.The collective is the most important in the civic world (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006, 185-193).Legality, collective agreements and civil rights are prioritized.Lastly, public opinion and recognition are what count the most in the world of fame (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006, 178-185).
More recent research in pragmatic sociology has shown how public justifications are not the only legitimate way of justifying arguments.Th� evenot's sociology of engagements (2007,2014) describes two other types of engagement with the world: familiar affinities and individual interests.Here, we only present the mode of valuation based on familiar affinities as valuation based on individual interests was absent from the media debate on increased logging.While arguments need to be universally generalizable in the valuation based on public justification, personal attachments of individuals are a legitimate way to defend one's position in the valuation based on familiar affinities.These attachments can be material, such as ties to familiar places, or immaterial, including experiences and ideas that are shared by a specific political community.The valuation based on familiar affinities relies strongly on individuals' emotions and feelings of familiarity (Th� evenot 2007).Political argumentation relying on familiar affinities has recently been on the rise among different social movements such as contemporary populist movements (Th� evenot 2014, p.10), including in the Finnish political context (Yl€ a-Anttila 2017).
Pragmatic sociology has previously been applied to political debates such as land-use and environmental conflicts (e.g.Centemeri 2017;Dan� ek et al. 2020;Eranti 2017).Comparative studies (e.g.Luhtakallio 2012; Th� evenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000) have found cultural variation in the use of different modes of valuation.This variation is said to reflect differences in national political cultures, originating from countries' unique economic, social and political trajectories (Lamont and Th� evenot 2000;Lamont 2012).For example, a study about environmental politics by Th� evenot, Moody, and Lafaye (2000) showed how green justifications tend to be more often combined with market ones in the US while in France, green justifications are more combined to civic ones.Taken together, pragmatic sociology helps to understand politicization of science as culturally-embedded action where actors refer to multiple systems of valuation to politicize science.

Dispute About Increased Logging in Finland, 2015-2020
Roughly three quarters of the land surface in Finland is covered by forest.Forest biomass has increased annually by 1% over the past decades, as has logging for industrial ends (Forest Europe 2020).Such development stems from an intensive forest management regime that was put in place over the past two centuries.Originally, the regime emerged to prevent deforestation and sustain wood production by increasing forest growth (Myllyntaus and Mattila 2002).A Forest Research Institute was established by the first independent government in 1917 to further the goal, formalizing the close intertwinement of academic forest sciences with state and corporate interests, all aiming to maximize wood production for the sake of industrialization (Kotilainen and Rytteri 2011).After decades of highly intensive management, including massive clearcuts and widespread swamp drainage, environmental concerns eventually arose to the Finnish forest policy agenda in the 1990s (Harrinkari, Katila, and Karppinen 2016).
Since its inception, the regime has caused conflict.Up to the 1980s, conflicts mainly erupted between the Finnish Forest Administration and the private non-industrial forest owners (own three-fifths of Finnish forests).Since, conflicts between the "forestry coalition" and the "environmental coalition" have become common (Harrinkari, Katila, and Karppinen 2016;Rantala and Primmer 2003).The former has prioritized wood production with forest owners' organizations and forest industry stakeholders as its core members.The latter has emphasized forest conservation, comprising actors such as environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs), autonomous research units and the Ministry of the Environment.
A recent dispute concerned the plan to increase logging in Finnish forests.In 2014, the government, led by the center-right National Coalition Party, revised the National Forest Strategy and crafted the National Bioeconomy Strategy, proclaiming forests as the cornerstone of Finnish "bioeconomy" (MoAF 2014).Through substitution of fossil materials in industrial and energy production, Finland was set to get "more of everything"-economic growth, spatial cohesion and climate mitigation (Kr€ oger and Raitio 2017).Both strategies implied increasing annual logging from 60-70 million m 3 to 80 million m 3 until 2030.The target was justified using forest growth forecasts by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE, successor of the Forest Research Institute) that operates under the supervision of its industry-oriented directorate and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MoAF).
What made the target controversial was its collision with prevailing scientific knowledge.In the Finnish scientific community, consensus on the negative impact of increased logging on Finland's forest carbon sink and stock is strong (Kalliokoski et al. 2020;Soimakallio et al. 2021;Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2017).It manifests, for example, in the 2017 report "Researchers' main messages about the climate impacts of forest use" (Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2017) by the Finnish Climate Change Panel, an independent scientific advisory body whose statutory mandate is to advise the government on climate policy.Aimed at clarifying scientists' views on the climate impacts of increased logging against the popular impression of them being divided over the issue, the report clearly stated that prevailing science is unanimous about the environmental impacts that are likely to thwart Finland's national and international commitments if logging levels are raised.The reports clearly states that increased logging will decrease Finland's carbon sink and stock for decades to come, compared to the situation where logging is not increased.The report included 28 key scientists from the largest universities and public research institutes with world-class expertise in forest-climate interactions.
Meanwhile, 68 Finnish scientists addressed the government (BIOS 2017), now led by the agrarian Center Party, to raise the same concerns, insisting that increased logging will not bring Finland any climate benefits for decades, perhaps not for centuries, due to losses in carbon stocks, four-fifths of the harvest already going to short-lived commodities, and increased emissions from processing (see also Hurmekoski et al. 2020;Pukkala 2017; Sepp€ al€ a and Kanninen 2017).The European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC), including members of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, wrote another report, iterating the same concerns regarding forest use in Europe (EASAC 2017).All three reports also mention the negative prospect of increased logging on forest biodiversity, the decline of which under Finland's intensive forest management regime has been well documented (Hyv€ arinen et al. 2019;Peura et al. 2022).
The rift between the government and leading scientists was grounded in distinct definitions of sustainability and competing models to forecast forest growth (for a comparison of the different models, see Kalliokoski et al. 2019), laying the foundation for politicization of science.Government strategies were based on calculations by LUKE, only considering the maximum sustainable cut in terms of wood production under prevailing cost structure and conservation priorities under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.LUKE was also responsible for calculating the "forest reference level" for Finland's forest carbon sink (2021)(2022)(2023)(2024)(2025) in response to the European Union's (EU) 2016 Energy and Climate Package.The Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) regulation threatened to restrict logging, yet according to LUKE's calculations in 2018, annual cut could be raised to 80 million m 3 and the carbon sink would grow.Soon, LUKE admitted to having overestimated the growth of the carbon sink, "accidentally using the wrong Excel sheet" (Sutinen 2018).However, updated calculations insisted that the carbon sink would develop positively and logging could increase.
Despite vocal criticism from scientists and ENGOs, the plans to increase logging were left untouched.Yet, latest calculations (Figure 1) show that the forest carbon sinks have collapsed, turning the land-use sector into an emitter (LUKE 2022), and prompting financial sanctions from the EU and Finland's first climate change litigation case.
It should be noted that this article only deals with a particular area where there is a strong scientific consensus: the negative environmental impacts of increased logging.We do not deal with other scientific debates surrounding forest policy where science might be less settled.These may concern, for example, debates about the impacts and tradeoffs of different forest management practices and the science of calculating carbon storage (see e.g.Majava et al. 2022, 3).

Data and Methods
We collected newspaper articles from the two most widely circulated prestige newspapers in Finland, Aamulehti and Helsingin Sanomat.The newspapers represent slightly different political orientations, center-right and center-left, respectively.Historically, press-party parallelism in Finland has been weak (van Kempen 2007).We collected articles from 2015 to 2020, using search terms that relate to the public debate on increased logging.This resulted in 9237 of articles.We reduced the sample size to 426 articles by only including articles that mentioned at least two of our keywords.The final data includes 223 articles as statements from journalists, editorials and opinion pieces from private citizens were excluded, as well as articles where no clear position on increased logging was taken.
The data was coded with the Discourse Network Analyzer software (DNA) by Leifeld (2017) which allows for combining qualitative content analysis with quantitative network analysis.By using this method, we are able to visualize the competing discourse coalitions in the debate on increased logging and compare our results to previous studies on Finnish forest policy.
The data was coded by the first author.From each article, the author identified statements from political actors where the actor took a clear position on the desirability of increased logging or more generally, defended or opposed the Finnish government's bioeconomy strategy that relies on the increased use of wood, and justified her position in some way.For each statement, the author coded the organization making the statement and the concept the statement referred to.Here, concepts represent the different modes of valuation following pragmatic sociology, ranging from qualifying objects in the material world through the common world of industry to engaging with the world through familiar affinities.To examine the use of scientific sources, we also coded statements where the actor referred to a scientific report to back up her position (concept "scientific report").For each concept, the author also marked either "pro" or "anti" to indicate whether the concept was used to support or oppose increased logging.The coding procedure resulted in 712 statements from 63 different organizations and in 7 concepts.Table 1 represents the statements made by the defenders of increased logging (forestry coalition) and the opponents of increased logging (environmental coalition).In the analysis section we only focus on examining statements from the forestry coalition as it was only the forestry coalition that politicized science, understood as challenging the scientific consensus.In addition, market and civic justifications (and fame justifications thereof, although the forestry coalition did not use such justifications in our data) are excluded from the analysis as they were not directly used to deny the scientific consensus, but rather as general justifications for increased logging.
To infer discourse coalitions, we fitted a degree-corrected microcanonical stochastic block model to the discourse network (Peixoto 2017).The method allows for partitioning the network into "communities"-groups of vertices (i.e., organizations in our case) that are more connected to one another than to vertices of other communities-according to the Bayesian posterior probability of the network having emerged from some specific community structure.To infer the best-fitting model from the data, we used a nonparametric Markov chain Monte Carlo heuristic (Peixoto 2014).Before fitting the model, we applied an average activity normalization to edge weights (i.e., strenght of discursive alignment between a pair of orgnisations) to correct for actors' varying levels of media visibility (Leifeld 2017).Then, edge weights were included in our model as edge covariates that were sampled from an exponential distribution (Peixoto 2018).Calculations were performed in Python.

Discourse Coalitions
Figure 2 shows the competing discourse coalitions in the news media debate, based on all the statements that actors make to defend or oppose increased logging (Table 1).Two coalitions stand out from the figure, we call them the environmental (opposes increased logging) and the forestry coalition (defends increased logging).Between these two coalitions, is a small group of organizations who do not clearly belong to either of these two coalitions.This constellation reflects the basic discursive division lines identified by previous studies on Finnish forest policy that have used different materials such as policy documents and interviews (e.g.Harrinkari, Katila, and Karppinen 2016;Kr€ oger and Raitio 2017;Rantala and Primmer 2003).
The environmental coalition mainly includes ENGOs (e.g.Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, WWF Finland), scientific organizations (e.g.Finnish Climate Change Panel, University of Turku) and political parties (e.g.The Greens, Left Alliance).The forestry coalition includes actors that represent forestry interests (e.g.Finnish Forest Industries, the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners), political parties (e.g.Center Party, Finns Party) and forestry companies (e.g.UPM, Mets€ a Group).In contrast to the environmental coalition, there is only one scientific organization in the forestry coalition: the European Forest Institute (EFI) which is an international research organization.
Between the two competing coalitions, is a small group of actors consisting mainly of scientific organizations (e.g.LUKE, University of Helsinki), but also political parties

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--(e.g.Social Democrats, National Coalition Party) and the Finnish Government.On the basis of qualitative analysis, these actors remain in the middle of the two coalitions due to their contradictory statements on increased logging.In the case of scientific organizations, for instance, two different researchers from the same organization have voiced divergent opinions on the desirability of increased logging in Finland.As this paper deals with ways of politicizing science, understood as challenging the scientific consensus, the following analysis only focuses on statements from the forestry coalition (and the small group of actors in the middle) and statements that directly challenged the scientific consensus on the negative environmental impacts of increased logging.Following, market and civic justifications are excluded from the analysis as the forestry coalition used them more generally to defend the plans to increase logging.

Technical Arguments
The forestry coalition's main approach to denying the various negative environmental impacts of increased logging was to use so-called technical arguments.We call these arguments technical because they focused on the technical process of carbon sequestration and on promoting simple, technical solutions to environmental problems such as climate change.By doing so, these green-industrial arguments (N ¼ 194) combined the basic values of the industrial world such as technical efficiency, productivity and expertise, with the values of the green world such as environmental sustainability.
Technical argumentation mainly concentrated on three interrelated topics: carbon sinks, forest growth and wood-based bioenergy.First, the forestry coalition argued that increased logging is the most efficient way to increase Finland's carbon sinks.This statement emphasizes the role of young trees as they absorb carbon more efficiently compared to old-growth forests where carbon sequestration is allegedly slowed down.By maximizing wood production, Finland would thus get the biggest climate benefits.Time-frame was essential to the argumentation of the forestry coalition: the coalition often emphasized how carbon sinks will not be endangered in the long term.Intensive forestry was, therefore, seen as a good solution the problem of climate change: In the debate on forestry generated by the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC, attempts have been made to make forestry a problem even though it is an integral part of the solution.Forests are an important carbon sink and managed, growing forests bind carbon the best.(Forest company UPM-Kymmene, Aamulehti, Dec 4, 2018) Forests need to be actively managed.If this is not done, it will be like it is in Canada which used to be an important, large carbon sink.Forests are now carbon sources there because forest management has been neglected.(Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners, Aamulehti, Nov 5, 2018) Second, the forestry coalition argued that Finland can increase logging because Finland has so much forest.This statement relies on one quantitative indicator of sustainability, the volume of forest growth.The fact that a new tree is always planted to replace the logged one, was considered the cornerstone of sustainable, Finnish forestry.The Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry responded to the public statement signed by 68 Finnish scientists (BIOS 2017) where they criticized the government's plans to increase logging, in a succinct way: "Once the growth of forests has increased, the use of wood can also be increased" (HS, Mar 27, 2017).The following quote from an expert organization that operates under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry also stresses the importance of forest growth: Thanks to determined forest management, the growth of forest has doubled in the last 50 years to 110 million cubic meters per year … With the help of continuous forest management, the growth of forests will continue to increase: by 2030, we will already reach almost 120 million cubic meters.Finland's forests remain carbon sinks despite increased logging.(Finnish Forest Center, Helsingin Sanomat, Sept 25, 2017) Following the logic of the industrial world, forests were primarily qualified as a natural resource whose value is measured in wood cubes.The previous arguments were in some cases accompanied with scientific proof (N ¼ 29).However, the coalition mainly referred to one scientific organization, the government research institute LUKE, whose studies and projections about carbon sinks and forest growth have deviated from the scientific consensus.Moreover, the forestry coalition highlighted its superior expertise on forest use and questioned the professionalism and motives of the environmental coalition.The statements that focus on scientific credibility were coded as arguments based on industrial worth (N ¼ 24).The forestry coalition argued, for instance, that the environmental coalition does not fully understand the process of carbon sequestration and how it is guided by green ideology.The proposal of the EU environment committee that in 2017 suggested strict restrictions to Finland's forest use, and the public statement from Finnish scientists, were claimed as having nothing to do with science: The IPCC's unrealistic calculation principles of GHG's and sinks concerning LULUCF, as well as the arbitrarily chosen calculation method of the EU Environment Committee, have received a mix of criticism and agreement -agreement only from the 68 researchers mentioned above.It should be noted that only a small fraction of forest and forest ecosystem researchers signed the statement.Some of the signatories of the statement have absolutely no knowledge of forestry research.(LUKE, Helsingin Sanomat, Jul 26, 2017) Lastly, the coalition defended increased logging by emphasizing how wood-based bioenergy will replace fossil fuels in the future.Wood-based bioenergy was regarded as the most efficient and realistic alternative to fossil fuels because wood is a renewable and domestic natural resource and mainly comes from the side streams of the forest industry.In addition to providing energy, wood was also emphasized as replacing plastic in the future.

National Arguments
National arguments (N ¼ 15) emerged during the EU's LULUCF-negotiations in 2017.We call these arguments "national" as they refer to Finland or Finnishness.While technical arguments were based on abstract, moral principles, national arguments reflect valuation based on familiar affinities (Th� evenot 2007(Th� evenot , 2014)).These arguments referred to personal attachments shared by a political community, in this case the Finnish people.These attachments include culturally shared ideas and images about forests, forestry and the Finnish people.As an example, forestry was regarded as an integral part of Finnish identity which was now under threat by an external actor, the EU: Finland has a special relationship with the forest and nature.We are a forest nation, there is no escape from that.(Finnish MEP Nils Torvalds, Swedish People's Party/ALDE, Helsingin Sanomat, Sept 22, 2017).
The forestry coalition fiercely attacked the initial proposal presented by the EU environment committee according to which increases in the levels of logging would have been calculated as a rise in Finland's GHG emissions.The forestry coalition emphasized how forest is a personal matter for Finns and how actors such as the EU are not able to truly understand the nature of Finnish forestry: EU bodies do not recognize the Finnish, multifaceted meaning of forestry.(Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners, Helsingin Sanomat, Jul 9, 2017) Not a lot of Finnish forestry is understood and valued in this decision.(Finnish Government, Aamulehti, Oct 14, 2017) In the end, Finland's counter proposal to the EU environment committee's proposal won, allowing Finland to have more flexibility in terms of levels of logging.Before this voting, the Finnish Prime Minister stressed how this decision is "a nationally important matter", pressing the Finnish Members of European Parliament (MEPs) to vote for the counter proposal.

Discussion & Conclusion
This paper used pragmatic sociology (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006;Th� evenot 2007Th� evenot , 2014) ) to analyze politicization of science from a novel, cultural perspective.Our main objective was to show how science can be effectively politicized using different modes of valuation which represent legitimate ways of justifying arguments in the public debate.
Our analysis of the Finnish news media debate on increased logging (2015-2020) demonstrated how the forestry coalition mainly used valuation based on public justification (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006), in this case combining values from the industrial and green world, to defend increased logging and challenge the scientific consensus on the negative environmental impacts of increased logging (BIOS 2017; Kalliokoski et al. 2020;Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2017;Soimakallio et al. 2021).These so-called technical arguments focused on the role of young trees and managed forests as most efficient carbon sinks, and on emphasizing forest growth.These arguments drew heavily on the basic principles of the industrial world such as technical efficiency, productivity and expertise.Following, increased logging was promoted as the best solution to the problem of climate change.
Expertise occupied a central role in the technical argumentation of the forestry coalition.The coalition emphasized how Finnish forestry actors have top expertise in forest management developed over decades and how this is reflected in record forest growth.The forestry coalition claimed that the environmental coalition, in turn, lacks scientific competence in forestry and is motivated by green ideology.In terms of scientific knowledge, the forestry coalition mainly referred to the government research institute LUKE's (Former Forestry Research Institute, operating under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) predictions about forest growth and carbon sinks.LUKE's calculations served as the basis for Finland's governmental strategies to increase logging and thus fed into the political agenda of the forestry coalition.However, LUKE's forecasts have been criticized for lacking scientific validity and transparency (Frilander 2019;Lappi 2019).Furthermore, the Finnish Climate Change Panel compared five different forest growth models in 2019, out of which MELA, the closed-source model that LUKE had used, was the only model to indicate positive development of the carbon sink despite increased logging (Kalliokoski et al. 2019).
In addition to selective science, the technical argumentation used by the forestry coalition relied on narrow definitions of sustainability (see also Pietarinen et al. 2023).For instance, while the claim that younger forests have a higher carbon uptake than older ones might be true, this individual fact is insufficient to assess the overall carbon balance of forestry (e.g.EASAC 2017, 1; Pukkala 2017).Furthermore, sustainability of forestry was mainly defined from the viewpoint of wood production: as long as annual loggings do not exceed annual forest growth, forestry can be considered sustainable.The narrow view on forest growth is likely to emerge from the intensive forest management regime that institutionalized over the course of the past two centuries (Kotilainen and Rytteri 2011;Siiskonen 2007).The focus on carbon sinks and forest growth effectively ignores the wider environmental impacts of increased logging such as accelerating biodiversity loss (e.g.BIOS 2017; Eyvindson, Repo, and M€ onkk€ onen 2018;Hyv€ arinen et al. 2019), losses in carbon stocks and decreasing quality of forests.In other words, the emphasis on forest growth appealed to the historically formed cultural understanding of forests as a natural resource that need to be productive and managed by humans, reflecting the logic and valuation of the industrial world.
The environmental coalition's argumentation mainly appealed to the values of the green world, emphasizing the various negative environmental impacts of increased logging such as diminishing carbon sinks and stocks, biodiversity loss and deterioration of the quality of forests.However, we coded these arguments as combining green and industrial worth as the environmental coalition referred to scientific knowledge to back up its arguments, scientific proof being an essential feature of the industrial world.The scientific views of the environmental coalition followed the scientific consensus, referring to sources such as the Finnish Climate Change Panel and The Finnish Environment Institute (government research institute, operating under the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry).The coalition argued how increased logging will decrease Finland's carbon sinks and stocks for decades to come, even for centuries.This is due to a variety of reasons, such as wood being primarily used for short-term products, losses in carbon stocks and carbon emissions resulting from wood energy and industrial processes (e.g.Booth 2018;Pukkala 2017;Sepp€ al€ a and Kanninen 2017;Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2019;Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2022;Soimakallio et al. 2016).
However, even though both coalitions used science to promote their political goals, it was only the forestry coalition who attempted to politicize science in the debate on increased logging-politicization of science understood as challenging the scientific consensus following the definition of politicization of science (Bolsen and Druckman 2015;Jasanoff 1987;Oreskes and Conway 2010;Sarewitz 2004)-while the environmental coalition used science to politicize the government's plans to increase logging.This distinction-politicizing science versus policizing issues with science-is important as it helps clarify politicization of science as a clearly defined social practice: as questioning the scientific consensus.
The forestry coalition's focus on the technical process of carbon sequestration and on promoting technical solutions to climate change converges with recent studies concerning environmental and bioeconomy policy.According to these studies, corporations tend to suggest technical solutions where further extension and intensification of industrial activities is promoted (Fischer, Stenius, and Holmgren 2020;Lamphere and East 2017;Lamb et al. 2020).In Sweden, for instance, bioeconomy has been defended by a technical language that focuses on productivity and technological progress (Fischer, Stenius, and Holmgren 2020).By proposing technical solutions, corporations have delayed policy action on environmental problems that would require deeper, structural changes into current societies.Our findings suggest that technical arguments also have a central role in attempts to directly politicize environmental science.The credibility of technical arguments, being complicated and scientific in nature, is difficult to assess by citizens and policymakers.Technical argumentation combined with selective scientific knowledge therefore constitutes a powerful cultural tool for the politicization of science as science and technology carry such valued roles in contemporary societies.Emphasizing one's own expertise and questioning the opponents' scientific credibility also echo the pivotal role of expertise in contemporary societies.Pragmatic sociology helps understand the nature of these technical debates: how they are based on specific cultural values and how they have the power to maintain prevailing practices in environmental policy.
In addition to technical argumentation, the forestry coalition also used so-called national arguments to defend increased logging, although their role was minor compared to technical argumentation in the news media debate.National arguments reflected valuation based on familiar affinities (Th� evenot 2007(Th� evenot , 2014)).The forestry coalition appealed to cultural ideas and experiences about forests shared by the Finnish people.These included the idea of "sustainable Finnish forestry" which was under threat by external actors such as the EU who are not able to understand the special nature of Finnish forestry, and the personal relationship between forests and the Finnish people.Through shared history and culture, these ideas are strongly bound to Finnish people.They are therefore much less generalizable compared to the universal moral principles that are referred to in the valuation of public justification, and which are apparent in technical argumentation.In his study of Finnish forest policy, Toivanen (2021) also found that emphasizing Finland's special position as "the land of sustainable forestry" is a central discursive strategy of forestry actors in Finland.
By suggesting that technical and national arguments represent powerful cultural tools (Swidler 1986) that actors may use to effectively politicize science, our results add a theoretical contribution to the literature on politicization of science.While previous studies have defined politicization of science as actors emphasizing scientific uncertainty to challenge existing scientific consensus (Bolsen and Druckman 2015;Jasanoff 1987;Oreskes and Conway 2010;Sarewitz 2004), we showed how this definition is inadequate to understand the various ways in which political actors attempt to politicize science in current political debates.Politicization of science should not be merely understood as strategic action where actors are driven by economic interests, but as cultural action that emerges from the local political context and its prevalent notions of value.
Different modes of valuation, stemming from distinct systems of valuation (Boltanski and Th� evenot 2006;Th� evenot 2007Th� evenot , 2014)), can be effectively used to politicize science.In our case, the forestry coalition used a particular set of cultural tools to challenge the scientific consensus and reinforce the status-quo of Finnish forest policy.An outcome of politicization of science on increased logging was policy being left untouched, prompting direct (international sanctions) and indirect (environmental damage) costs.A recent report from the Finnish Climate Change Panel (Sepp€ al€ a et al. 2022) whose purpose was to correct the widely presented claim that increased logging would be good for the climate, further confirms that increased logging cannot be justified by its benefits for the climate.The report states that increased logging leads to a clear reduction of carbon sinks in Finland throughout the 100-year review period.
In addition, while previous studies have mainly focused on the US political context (Farrell 2016;Jacques, Dunlap, and Freeman 2008;McCright and Dunlap 2003;Oreskes and Conway 2010), we analyzed ways of politicizing science in the Finnish political context.In the Finnish debate on increased logging, it was not common to appeal to scientific uncertainty.To investigate whether there are differences in how much actors appeal to scientific uncertainty between different countries and political systems, would require comparative research.However, recent study about the fossil fuel company ExxonMobil's public communication by Supran and Oreskes (2021) suggests that appeals to scientific uncertainty could be losing its status as the primary vehicle to politicize science in the US.This study shows how ExxonMobil currently uses more subtle and ambiguous forms of framing to undermine environmental policy and science, such as emphasizing climate risks.
Each society has its own cultural ways of producing and managing natural resource conflicts (Hellstr€ om 2001).Our results are therefore specific to the Finnish context.Our results on the strong role of technical argumentation, based strongly on industrial worth, aligns with Luhtakallio's (2012) study where she compared ways of justifying arguments in local conflicts between citizens and city officials in local news media debates in France and Finland.She concluded that Finns tend to be more "industrial," justifying their arguments with efficiency, expertise and scientifically proven knowledge.Our study adds evidence to the pivotal role of industrial worth in Finnish political culture.
However, we have reasons to expect that the cultural tools used in the Finnish political context are likely to find fertile ground at least in countries and regions where forestry has either become the backbone of the economy or been historically coupled with persistent narratives of progress and sustainability to legitimize the course of action (Bridge and McManus 2000;Bryant 1996).Future studies should examine variation in the ways in which politicization of science is created across different countries and policy sectors.
Most important limitation of this paper concerns the use of newspaper material in the analysis of politicization of science.For instance, references to different modes of valuation tend to vary between different public arenas according to their levels of publicity and requirements for generalization (Th� evenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000, 238).While arguments referring to familiar affinities were relatively rare in the news media debate, their prevalence is expected to be higher in less public realms and more locallybased disputes.More empirical research is needed on the ways of politicizing science beyond the media sphere.In addition, while the majority of scientific organizations belonged to the environmental coalition, there were some scientific actors also in the middle of the two coalitions: two government research institutes that focus on natural resources (LUKE) and technology (VTT) but also three universities.This indicates that different researchers from the same scientific organization have expressed contradicting views on the desirability of the government's plans to increase logging.This finding merits further investigation using different research materials.We expect that the differences between scientific organizations and individual researchers could be affected by factors such as disciplinary emphasis, mandate and funding.
In conclusion, pragmatic sociology offers useful analytical tools to explore how politicization of science is created in public debates by appealing to multiple systems of valuation.Our theoretical contribution to the literature on politicization of science has been to show how broader cultural factors affect and create the context for effective politicization of science to emerge.This type of cultural approach is valuable because it allows us to identify the more mundane and subtle forms of politicization of science.Understanding the varied ways in which political actors aim to politicize environmental science is important because the climate and biodiversity crises require urgent political action.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Land-based greenhouse gas emissions in Finland, 1990-2021 (Natural Resources Institute Finland, 2022); white point tracks the net emissions in Million Metric Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide Equivalents.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Discourse coalitions in the debate on increased logging (2015-2020).Green: environmental coalition, blue: forestry coalition, yellow: group of actors that do not belong to either of the two coalitions.Note.Actors with frequency >1 are included in the network visualization.

Table 1 .
Statements from the defenders and opponents of increased logging by concept, N ¼