Hierarchical Opposition

The purpose of this paper is to give a simple, clear and precise graph theoretic characterization of Dumont's controversial and ambiguous concept of hierarchical opposition. The analysis has special importance for Austronesianists who have independently discovered and applied the concept of hierarchical opposition on several different occasions.     

Astronomy,Latinity, Enlightenment: Niels Krog Bredal’s Poems Commemorating the Transits of Venus, 1761 and 1769

The subject of this article is three pieces of elegiac Latin poetry, written in Trondheim by the mayor of the town, Niels Krog Bredal. The occasion for the poems were the transits of Venus occurring in the years 1761 and 1769, a rare phenomenon attracting considerable attention from natural philosophers of the Enlightenment and spurring numerous scientific expeditions across the globe. Bredal wrote the poems to commemorate expeditions undertaken by Thomas Bugge and Urban Bruun Aaskow (Trondheim, 1761), Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein (Trondheim, 1769), and Maximilianus Hell (Vardø, 1769). Bredal is primarily remembered as an important, albeit controversial, figure within Dano-Norwegian theatre history. His Latin poems reveal another side of his character, a person with a keen interest in the natural sciences, and more than willing to express his insights through poetry. The article includes an edition with critical apparatus, translation, and commentary.     

The anatomy of difference: comprehending the evolutionary dynamics of economic and spatial structure in the Austrian and Czech economies

The research on the economic convergence of Central and Eastern European countries towards the old EU members is voluminous, and it has an obvious appeal to both policy-makers and public. Unlike the traditional literature concerned with selected macro-patterns of the European convergence process, this paper presents a comparative study of two economies, attempting to comprehend more nuanced aspects and underlying mechanisms shaping their evolution. It examines the evolutionary dynamics of the structure and spatial organization of the Czech and Austrian economies since the late 1980s. Therefore, as a basis for subsequent analysis, the conceptual part attempts to systematize the key specific factors of the former command economies. The empirical results show that, despite significant similarities in the structure of these economies, the absolute and relative productivity as well as the spatial relatedness of the main types of industries reveal important differences between these two countries. These distinctions tend to be disregarded when making inferences about the European convergence process on the basis of traditional literature concerned predominantly with macro-patterns. Consequently, this study shows that since the collapse of socialism, Czechia has been reintegrated into the global economy in a different way from Austria, implying different evolutionary trajectories in the future.     

Urban Planning and Sustainable Development

Following the discourse about sustainable development based on the Brundtland Commission's report and the processes in the UN Committee on Environment and Development, a sustainable urban development would require considerably more ambitious policies than today in order to limit energy consumption, reduce pollution and protect natural areas and arable land. Re-use of urban areas and more effective utilization of building sites is a possible strategy to this end. However, continuous growth in the building stock will make it increasingly difficult to bring urban development in wealthy countries within the frames of what is ecologically sustainable and equitable in a global perspective. Planning for a sustainable urban development must be oriented towards long-term goals and utilize knowledge about the environmental consequences of different solutions, but should not be based solely on means-ends rationality. Rather than aiming at consensus including all stakeholder groups, planning for sustainability should facilitate alliance-building among those population groups who can support the basic equity and environmental values of a sustainable development.     

To be and to continue being a cog: the conservation of the Bremen Cog of 1380

The conservation project for the Bremen Cog of 1380 took 38 years from salvage to presentation of the ship to the public in the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum in 2000. The ship was salvaged from the River Weser in about 2000 pieces, and stored in water tanks. A new museum was built, and the Cog reassembled from the waterlogged timbers. The ship was reconstructed with most of the weight being taken by the ceiling of the hall via a steel-rod hanging system. Then a conservation tank was built around the hull, and a novel two-step PEG-treatment applied, especially developed for the Cog. In two consecutive baths PEG 200 and PEG 3000 stabilized lesser degraded and heavily degraded wood against shrinkage, splitting, and warping. After cleaning, the wood looks dark brown, dry, and natural. The extraordinary project is regarded a success.     

Putting Porter into Practice? Practices of Regional Cluster Building: Evidence from Sweden

In the last decade there has been an increased interest in the cluster approach as a tool for boosting regional competitiveness. In this article practices and processes of regional cluster building in Sweden are examined in order to better understand the key traits that seem to be common to successful regional cluster initiatives. It is argued that regional cluster building may be formed through long running policy processes that are crucially constituted by public and private actors' collective vision of what cluster policy involves and what a cluster can look like. Results from a study of 13 cluster initiatives in Sweden are presented. Out of these, four key examples are presented in detail to illustrate four distinct 'models' of cluster approaches that emerged: (a) industry-led initiatives to build competitiveness and competence within an existing base; (b) top-down public policy exercises in brand-building; (c) visionary projects to produce an industry cluster from 'thin air'; (d) small scale, geographically dispersed, natural resource based, temporal clusters that link or dip into global rather than national systems, sources of innovation and competitive advantage. The article closes with the presentation of a checklist of some common elements that successful cluster initiatives in Sweden have shared. It is hoped that they may trigger further research or be useful to policy-makers working in the area. It is concluded that though many questions and problems persist over the use of the cluster-approach it can be a useful tool for regional development.     

Abortion and eugenics

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw a revolution within foetal diagnostics. In roughly the same period, legal measures in many countries permitted the termination of pregnancies in cases of suspected foetal abnormalities. Critics have claimed that the resulting abortion policies resemble the old, state‐imposed eugenics of the early 20th century. This article presents some evidence to the contrary. In Norway, which is the article's main topic of concern, so‐called eugenic clauses in the abortion legislation were passed well before the revolution in foetal diagnostics. More importantly, other motives were historically more significant than eugenics for the development of modern Norwegian abortion policies. Consequently, any eugenic effect of these policies should be considered a result of coincidence rather than design – or so the article argues. Brief comparisons with the other Nordic countries are included.     

SWEDISH EXPLORERS,IN-SITU KNOWLEDGE,AND RESOURCE-BASED BUSINESS IN THE AGE OF EMPIRE

The period from 1870 to 1914 plays a unique role in the history of natural resource exploration and extraction. This article analyses, from a Swedish viewpoint, the connections between two actor categories of special importance in this context: scientific-geographical explorers and industrial actors. The article examines their activities in three broadly defined regions: the Arctic, Russia, and Africa. We show that the Swedes generally had far-reaching ambitions, on par with those of the large imperial powers. In some cases, notably in Africa, Sweden was not able to compete with the larger imperial powers; but in other cases, such as the exploration of the Arctic – from Spitsbergen to Siberia – and the industrial exploitation of coal at Spitsbergen and petroleum in Russia’s colonial periphery, Swedish actors played a leading role, in competition with players from the larger European nations. Our paper shows that scientific exploration and industry were closely linked, and that foreign policy also influenced the shaping of these links. We distinguish different types of knowledge produced by the Swedish actors, pointing to local, situated knowledge as the most important type for many resource-based businesses, although modern, scientific knowledge was on the increase during this period.     

Editorial

In this article it is argued that men and women have been considered as "too old" in the labour market at an earlier age than people in general have been considered old, irrespectively of the actual biological life expectancy. The article discusses, first, farm servants in the old peasant society on the basis of the Swedish Hired Labour Acts, and, second, the migration restrictions imposed on elderly servants. The third point of discussion concerns age composition and wage by age of industrial workers in Finland at the turn of the 20th century, while the fourth point covers long-term unemployment in the 1930s and the introduction of old-age pension schemes. Some tentative explanations for the variation in the incidence of age discrimination over the past two centuries are suggested.