Thomas Hobbes,Christian Thomasius and the seventeenth century debate on the church and state

Along the entire course of that seventeenth century, the great principles of representative government and the rights of conscience were passing through the anguish of conflict and fiery trial (De Quincey).     

Research on the history of the third world in Scandinavia

The aim of this paper is to challenge some of the established views on monetary and economic aspects of medieval Norwegian history. This challenge is not only based on a different understanding of the evidence, but also on new interpretations of documentary and numismatic evidence. Contrary to what has been the general understanding I argue that money was available, and it was, in longer periods of time, available within a framework of a well organized monetary system with large coinages. In the second half of the 12th century, coins became distributed and used among a larger group of people in rural areas than ever before. In market places and towns, money economy was emerging in the 11th and 12th, and probably seen partly in effect in the 13th and 14th century. If we accept the evidence for coinage and the use of money as being widely distributed, or even accept it partly, it opens up a range of new perspectives to use as starting points for understanding medieval monetary and economic history in Norway.     

Comparative and transnational perspectives on the introduction of multiculturalism in post-war Sweden

In the 1970s, Canada, Sweden and Australia became the first countries in the West to adopt formally the idea of multiculturalism as a basis for the political management of immigrant settlement. This article compares the introduction of the idea and politics of multiculturalism in Sweden in the 1960s and 1970s to the introduction of multiculturalism in Canada and Australia during the same time period. The emergence of a politics of multiculturalism in Sweden shares many similarities with the emergence of Canadian and Australian multiculturalism: ‘white’ and ‘European’ immigrant minority groups; ethnic lobbying; expert and academic advocacy; multiculturalist public officials; and effectual claims-making based on the innovative idea of multiculturalism. The comparative perspective on the birth of Swedish multiculturalism furthermore highlights Finland as an important historical and transnational factor in the introduction of official multiculturalism in Sweden. The article contributes to research on the history of multiculturalism, the politics of ethnic diversity in Sweden and comparative research on modern Swedish history.     

The clash of great powers and revolution in the Baltic Sea?

The Soviet party leadership claimed repeatedly after the mid-1920s that the Soviet Union was under an acute threat of intervention. The interpretation was based on different views regarding the development of socialism in the USSR. The role of Finland in the Soviet policy towards other border-states offers a case for observing the relation of ideology and practice in Soviet foreign policy, especially in the Baltic Sea context in 1925. The main interests for the Soviets were plans for military alliances and spheres of influence and intelligence. Contrary to the ideological worldview, the Peoples’ Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (NKID) did not see the western great powers, Great Britain and France, as being behind the Baltic alliance plan. Instead, the alliance attempt was primarily seen as an independent Polish initiative, especially lacking British support. The Soviet foreign administration was able to evaluate the grounds for eventual Finnish non-alliance accurately, despite Baltic sympathies and the lack of an active Scandinavian orientation. The results suggest the NKID observed international relations from the traditional viewpoint of Soviet state interests, and on the basis of quite accurate information, not reflecting the needs of ideological interpretation or domestic power struggles.     

Picturing Austria–Hungary. The British Perception of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1865–1870

In the late 1960s a Joint Nordic Co-operative Assistance Project was established in Tanzania. Its objective was to promote co-operative development in Tanzania based on Nordic experiences in the field. The project's effort to export Nordic co-operative ideas and traditions to Tanzania soon encountered major problems as the Government of Tanzania (GoT) launched a villagization process in the beginning of the 1970s, which sought to move the entire peasant population into ujamaa villages. The resettlement effort was implemented with the use of force and coercion and implied a dismantling of the traditional co-operative structures in Tanzania. This article finds that the Nordic countries helped facilitate GoT's compulsory policy by adjusting and restructuring the project to GoT's villagization strategy, despite the fact that the primary objective of the project was no longer present. As the article will reveal, there was a clear concern in the Nordic aid administrations that the Nordic project could be linked with the politics of coercion ingrained in the ujamaa policy.