From social democracy towards social neoliberalism: Agencing social investment in Finnish impact finance

In recent years, impact finance has sought to integrate financial rationales, actors, and novel policy instruments and impact assessment practices into policy frameworks. Initially developed in the Anglo-American liberal welfare regime, the influence of impact finance practices has expanded also into the Nordics. This article examines the development of Finnish impact finance, as spearheaded by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra in the late 2010s. Drawing on field observations in stakeholder gatherings, we employ the concepts of ‘agencement’ and ‘agencing’ to analyse both specific socio-technical devices such as impact bonds as well as the co-constitutive, broader efforts of ‘re-agencing’ Finnish public policy. A detailed analysis of these dynamics underscores the contemporary influence of financialization in shaping social investment from a social democratic framing towards social neoliberalism. Consequently, the study contributes to ongoing discussions on impact finance and the transformations of social investment rationales while also providing conceptual tools for further research in the field.