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Hänninen, Sarkari (2019)In: Hänninen, Sakari/Lehtelä, Kirsi-Marja Saikkonen Paula (eds.): The Relational Nordic Welfare State: Between Utopia and Ideology. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 29-49.EXCERPT„CONVENTIONThe Nordic welfare state has been a success story so far. It is a strong democratic state. As an integral state, it is conceivable in terms of its relations. The relational perspective makes it easier to recognise the real strengths of these states. It also clarifies how difficult it is to draw boundaries inside such relational states, even if these states need their outer boundaries to exist. Our world opens up in a much richer, more complex and dynamic way when approached in terms of its relations. It is not the points as individuals that make up the lines as relations but the intersection of lines which make up the points. We can quote Deleuze: 'Whether we are individuals or groups we are made of lines' (Deleuze and Parnet 2007, p. 124). We cannot start drawing or explaining the workings of our societies and social worlds purely in terms of individual action, since pre-individual individuation as information already precedes individuals and their action (Simondon 1992). In order to make sense of state action, it must be institutionally conceived, whilst individual action must be conventionally conceived. The integral state is an ensemble of multiple institutions whose situated  practices can be called state action. Individuals as actors are constituted by conventions which coordinate their relations. The most crucial actual challenges of the Nordic welfare state take place at the interface between state institutions and social conventions. The real strength of the Nordic welfare states has been their capacity in connecting and balancing institutional and conventional practices. Institutional competition and cooperation take place in the context of inter-individual relations coordinated by conventions. Whilst conventions coordinate these relations, institutions regulate them. This difference between institutions and conventions makes it clear that there is a relational space between them (Diaz-Bone 2012, p. 65). This is a virtual space which opens up novel possibilities and opportunities for collectively creative constitution and coordination of these relations by conventions. Since conventions precede institutions, primacy must be given to coordination rather than regulation (Salais 2001, pp. 3, 12). Conventions not only precede institutions, but also individuals. Conventions constitute informative practices which make up individuals. The informative constitution of acting individuals refers to the actualisation of human potentialities (Simondon 1992). From a conventional perspective, we must approach individuals through individuation rather than individuation through individuals. We cannot make perfect sense of the relationally situated practices of the Nordic welfare states by analysing them directly along the state/individual ax is (Kettunen 2012, pp. 23-4). The insight that both the state and individuals act in the context of social relations denotes that such dynamic actors cannot be presumed as given or fixed. From a relational perspective we must focus on practices and processes taking place in between the constantly transforming state and constantly becoming individuals. Practices such as informative individuation, conventional coordination and institutional balancing work in tandem in order to generate virtuous circles of development. All these practices - above all, conventional coordination - can be understood as responses to contextual contingencies and uncertainty in social life (Thevenot 2002). In making our choices, we are obligated to start from incomplete information and from incomplete concord. Any presumption of some sort of universal human rationality or general will has been outpaced whilst building the Nordic welfare state.“ (p. 29-30)