Waged Slavery – Incentivizing Unfree Labour at Cape Coast Castle in the Eighteenth Century

This article studies the payment of wages to castle slaves at Cape Coast Castle (in current-day Ghana) in the eighteenth century. A quantitative estimate shows that the wages paid to these slaves were considerably higher than subsistence costs. A large sample of wage payments is also used in order to analyse statistically the existing wage differentials among the slaves. The results indicate that a complex wage structure had been developed in order to incentivize the slaves to work and to foster loyalty towards the slaveholder.     

Muslims Opposing Violent Radicalism and Extremism: Strategies of Swedish Sufi Communities

Europe has seen the development of a new research agenda in response to Islamist terror attacks of recent years. Researchers are not only trying to solve the “radicalization puzzle” in order to understand the reasons why young Muslims in Western countries are attracted to extremism, but they are also making proposals for de-radicalizing extremists and creating relationships of trust with Muslim communities. Directly or indirectly, Europe’s Muslim minorities are the objects of the interventions and preventive work under discussion. This study suggests an alternative approach. Rather than regarding Muslims in Europe as more or less passive objects of various anti-extremism interventions, it directs attention toward the strategies developed by European Muslims themselves in fighting Islamist extremism. Using qualitative interviews with leaders of five Sufi communities in Sweden, the study examines a series of strategies for meeting the challenges posed by extremists.     

Caring while living apart

In recent years, researchers have paid increasing attention to the issue of care in the new types of family and partner relationships. The aim of this study is to examine expectations and attitudes concerning care among elderly people in LAT (Living Apart Together)- relationships in Sweden, that is, people who have a long-term intimate relationship, but who do not share a common home. Questionnaires were completed by 116 elderly people in LAT-relationships. Partners are ranked as the main providers of care, especially by men, but there is considerable variation in the answers. This seems to be principally related to the degree of flexibility in this type of relationship. Some individuals see a LAT-relationship as a marriage-like relationship, while others see it primarily as a type of relationship that guarantees them the possibility of maintaining their own independent way of life.     

Towards New Public Management in Greek Public Organizations: Leadership vs. Management,and the Path to Implementation

In the beginning of the 21st century, when the notion of constant transformation is so frequently invoked, organizational change in the public sector is gaining increased attention. Responding to regulatory, economic, competitive and technological shifts, the challenge of reorganization is universal for all public organizations. This paper aims to explore the shift from Traditional to New Public Management (NPM), as well as the driving forces (such as the information economy, the need for better public performance, the opening of global markets, greater knowledge intensity etc.) that lead to the formulation of transformational programs to Greece. A presentation of a transformational program called Politeia, will be provided, analysed and compared to previous efforts. Finally, we address the important role of leadership and management in Greek public organizations that want successful to implement any change effort successfully.     

Enlightenment,Scientific Exploration and Abolitionism: Anders Sparrman's and Carl Bernhard Wadström's Colonial Encounters in Senegal, 1787–1788 and the British Abolitionist Movement

By the late eighteenth century, leading British abolitionists credited two Swedish scholars – Anders Sparrman and Carl Bernhard Wadström – with important contributions to the breakthrough of the British abolitionist movement. After witnessing the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade during a journey to Senegal, both scholars came to be explicit critics of this trade. In this article, I argue that the two Swedes contributed to the abolitionist cause particularly because of their status as academic scholars. This enabled a science-based rhetoric to complement the sentimental rhetoric of most other abolitionists at the time.     

Getting out of the European Paradox trap: Making European research agile and challenge driven

The ‘European Paradox’ encapsulates concerns that although European research institutions play a leading role in terms of top-level scientific output, they lag behind in their ability to convert this strength into successful innovations in the market. This paradox and the related intriguing problematic aspects of European research institutions have inspired a significant number of research papers, reports and studies by academics, innovation think tanks and the European Commission itself. In this position paper, we review the literature on the European paradox, identify gaps and contradictions in the understanding of the actual situation and discuss possible ways of moving forward towards a European research and innovation system that taps into diversity and complementarity of resources as a competitive innovation advantage.