Is the cultural field hypothesis true for Finland?

Abstract: This study presents an in-depth analysis of spatial voting behavior in Finland at the municipality level, using electoral data from 1983 to 2019. The primary objective is to investigate if the cultural field hypothesis holds true for Finland. If this hypothesis holds, distinct cultural domains should emerge within Finland. Furthermore, we hypothesized that if the cultural field hypothesis holds true, a distinct community would appear along the Russian border, leading to an east-west partition of Finland. To test the cultural field hypothesis, we do a spatial correlation analysis, and we use community detection to find distinct communities within Finland. The spatial correlation analysis suggested the existence of distinct communities in Finland that span approximately 400 km in length. The community detection then confirms this, revealing two main communities: The northern and the southern communities, and in 6 out of 10 elections, three communities emerged. Hence, the cultural field hypothesis holds true for Finland. However, the distribution of these communities did not support the hypothesis that a distinct community would emerge along the Russian border creating an east-west partition of Finland. Instead, we observed a north-south and a “west/south coastal” partition.