Abstract
There exists international concern on the existence of modern slavery across the world. This study demonstrates a novel ‘configurational’ approach to the understanding of the modern slavery problem across a large sample of the countries of the world. Using data from the Walk Free Foundation, conditions of country level modern slavery associated vulnerabilities, including, Governance Issues, Lack of Basic Needs, Inequality, Disenfranchised Groups and Effects of Conflict, are considered against the concomitant outcomes of Prevalence of Slavery and level of Government Responses associated with each country. Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) is employed to consider the relationships of vulnerabilities (conditions) to each of the two outcomes. As such, the analysis progresses to the consideration of configurations of the conditions against the considered outcomes. Initial results exhibit evidence of the existence of multiple pathways of conditions describing separately the presence and absence of the high prevalence of modern slavery and high level of government responses, demonstrating the equifinality in this considered modern slavery problem. Emphasis on the graphical (including maps) exposition of results demonstrates the potential advocacy of a configurational approach in the understanding of the modern slavery problem across the world.