AbstractOil rich states all over the world share a common feature. They are less likely than other states, depending on other resources, to be ruled democratically. In this essay Saudi Arabia has been studied with the purpose of trying to find which mechanisms that lie behind why oil rich states do not have institutions or institutional change that promotes democracy.Saudi Arabia has the world's largest known reservoir of oil. The oil brings huge revenue each year to the Saudi Arabian government. Why have Saudi Arabia not developed democratically when their economic growth suggests that to be a natural step? Under the framework of historical institutionalism and path dependency theory, I have used process tracing trying to track the mechanisms behind Saudi Arabia's authoritarian rule down.

The public health care sector has come under increasing pressure to cut down costs, maximize productivity and satisfy patients' needs during the 1990s and onwards. As a way of "getting more for less" quality management has been introduced. Originating in the private manufacturing industry, quality management has a strong focus on productivity and efficiency, aspects which are measured in quantitative terms. However, there are strong concerns that quality management is a means of speeding up the marketization of public health care by introducing core values much different from the ethic and medical norms that traditionally underpin health care organizations.This essay focuses on how quality management has been introduced to, and transformed by, public health care. A theoretical framework based on new institutionalism is constructed, and translation theories are used as a way of illustrating how the medical institutional environment, in fact, changes the concept of quality management.

The Swedish Armed Forces have gone through a remarkable change. From beingan organisation built on the notion of countering a Soviet invasion it has evolvedto focusing on small, multilateral rapid reaction capabilities to be used within theframework of the European security and defence policy, ESDP.This thesis regards the change as a process of Europeanisation. Drawing fromsociological and historical institutionalism, it is shown that the Swedish ArmedForces in the post-cold war context was path dependent and unwilling to redefineits historical raison d?être. The origin of the ESDP Europeanised the nationaldefence policy, whereas the bureaucracy was still unwilling to translate the newstructural norms.

This paper studies the Swedish Alien?s Act regulations regarding individuals in need of international protection. The purpose of the essay is to examine the differences between the three grounds of protection that are found in the Swedish Alien?s Act. Central questions have been whether the origins of protection statuses granted in this act are national or international, as the UN convention relating to the status of refugees and also the progress of the European Union?s Common European Asylum System both are affecting the Swedish legislation.

Studiens primära syfte är att utveckla ett teoretiskt ramverk som kan bidra till en ytterligare teoretisk förståelse för staters agerande i FN:s säkerhetsråd. Ramverket vilar på en rationalistisk grund och bygger på tre förklaringsmodeller; en första med fokus på internationell makt och säkerhet, en andra inomstatlig förklaring och en tredje institutionalistisk förklaring. Ramverket appliceras sedan på en fallstudie där Kinas och USA:s agerande i säkerhetsrådet analyseras. Bland studiens slutsatser bör framhållas att säkerhetsrådet av stater anses vara en viktig institution och att det råder en påtaglig respekt för rådets prejudicerande makt. Studien visar även att säkerhetsrådsmedlemmars beslut till stor del är resultatet av långsiktiga kalkyler utifrån reciprocitet och ryktespåverkan, samt att den historiska kontexten påverkar hur staters agerande tas emot av övriga medlemmar.

Sedan en europeisk identitet först nämndes i 1973 års ?Declaration on European identity? har många symboler och begrepp myntats för att försöka definiera och tillkännage något unikt europeiskt, EU-medborgarskapet som det mest konkreta exemplet på europeisk enhetlighet. Den här uppsatsen analyserar särskilt hur denna utveckling har sett ut i tre dokument publicerade inom EU och med liknande syften: att driva på integration och sammanhållning. Genom att analysera dem utifrån en pluralistisk mångfalds- respektive partikularistisk enhetsdiskurs tydliggörs EU:s identitetsdiskurs. Vilka värden har kopplats till det europeiska över tid? Samtliga dokument hänvisar, med olika mycket betoning, på pluralistiska såväl som partikularistiska värden som grund för en europeisk identitet.

With background in the acknowledgement of the current period of major change in the characteristics of traditional Swedish foreign policy, considering the membership in the European Union, as well as the new contextual scenarios that Sweden has been situated in after the end of the cold war, this thesis aims at scrutinizing the Swedish Foreign Policy from 1991 to 2010. The purpose of the thesis is further to localize continuity and change in the ideas which Sweden has explicitly stated in its foreign policy. Based on the theory of institutionalism, the thesis also aims to bring forward plausible explanations built on the main empirical findings. This has been done by identifying different types of goals and means within realism and liberalism as well as categorizing each theory within three ideal types.The chosen research method has been a qualitative text analysis with focus on an ideational analysis. The material on which the descriptive analysis is based upon is constituted by the annual statements of government policy in parliamentary debates on foreign affairs.The results of the thesis show that the ideas that are related to solidarity, consensus and active foreign policy are constant through the period of examination.

This master?s thesis deals with the development of the Swedish library catalogue. The thesis primarily has two purposes. Firstly, it describes how the Swedish library catalogue has developed from its first appearance until today. As the Swedish library sector is very extensive the authors have chosen a few catalogues which they have studied more thoroughly.

Uppsatsen tar sin utgångspunkt i den allt mer ökade efterfrågan av produkter som producerats i överensstämmelse med mänskliga rättigheter. Uppsatsen behandlar Lunds kommunstyrelses beslut att rekommendera dess förvaltningar att använda Rättvisemärkt kaffe och te. Syftet med uppsatsen är att se på vilket sätt, och i vilken omfattning beslutet har implementerats i organisationen. För detta har vi använt såväl en teoretisk referensram i form av nyinstitutionalistisk organisationsanalys som empiriskt material. Det empiriska materialet utgörs av interjuver med anställda inom kommunens förvaltningar. Till detta har ett bakgrundkapitel som behandlar den innehållsmässiga innebörden av begreppet hållbar utveckling, utifrån såväl en internationell, nationell som lokal aspekt lagts. Avslutningsvis är slutsatserna att det inom kommunen finns en konkret vilja att vidga innebörden av begreppet hållbar utveckling.

The Swedish Armed Forces is a public institution and consequently obliged to follow Swedish and international legislation. Thus, they are subjected to contrarious demands from different actors operating in its high-technological and high-institutional environment: to be a legitimate institution and at the same time operate with a high level of efficiency. This thesis is conducted with the aim of investigating whether The Swedish Armed Forces' steering document for gender equality is used to achieve visible and quantifiable results or if the document constitute a medium for reverberating legitimacy. To answer the research question, we applied a critical discourse analysis on the relevant documents and on the conducted semi-constructed interviews with members from different levels and positions in the organizational hierarchy. Subsequently, we came to the conclusion that the Swedish Armed Forces manage the demands for efficiency and legitimacy, which are forced upon them from the technological and institutional environment, by talking about them.

AbstractIn 1997 a regulation were introduced to the swedish school system, Förordning om kvalitetsredovisning i skolor m.m SFS 1997:702 (Regulation about account of quality works whithin the school system). The preceding discussion noticed that municipalities and schools lacked in their progresive quality work. Messures had to be taken. Since the introduction of the regulation the government has decreed changes and additions to the original regulation. This has led to changes of substance and form in the quality work account to the administration during time.

The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine libraries which combine the functions of school- and public library and to evaluate the staff?s experience and attitude towards a library profile with the emphasis on children and youth. The purpose of the study is also to examine how the libraries work with several tasks and functions within different target groups with different needs.With new institutionalism and Scandinavian institutional theory the thesis examine the library as an organization and what influences the construction. With a model that describes how the library constitutes four different rooms in the society I investigate the different functions.The methodology is qualitative with interviews of five persons of the staff, four librarians and one library assistant. The study examines how the staff that works at two libraries under similar conditions experiences their tasks.

This thesis suggest an explanation for is how it is possible to understand that the large arena project in Växjö grew to cost sums of money that initially in the project not would have been an alternative to discuss, how goals changed and how the institutional environment changed the prerequisites of the project. As empirical part of the research, to describe and analyze the project, the municipality?s documentation of the project have been analyzed and semi-structured interviews have been made. Theoretical perspective is taken from the neo-institutionalism in sociology of organizations and change, and theories of the complexity of large projects with major symbolic value and importance. The project starts with the municipality?s investment and cost to be hold back, defined as a necessary condition in order to fulfil an ambitious drive towards new sport arenas.  Eventually the necessary condition was abandoned and the arenas were built with the municipality responsible for the investment, cost and risk in the project.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka regeringens motiv till en föreslagen marknadsorienterad reform av primärvården, vårdval i Sverige. Genom en analys av över tjugo texter från den offentliga diskussionen om vårdval, nationellt och i landstingen Halland, Stockholm och Skåne där vårdvalsmodeller är initierade, ges läsaren inblick i en pågående reformprocess. Centrala aktörer, den politiska majoriteten och oppositionen, läkare och akademiker, finns representerade i analysen eftersom det krävs en bred ansats med inte bara regeringens texter utan även andra aktörers röster för att förstå motiven till reformen.Tre teoretiska perspektiv med kompletterande förslag till varför förändring sker används i analysen. Två från nyinstitutionell teori, ett symbolperspektiv och ett verktygsperspektiv, samt ett maktperspektiv.En rationell diskussion dominerar de analyserade texterna där reformen är ett verktyg för att nå resultat, som att öka besöken i primärvården och att skapa konkurrens mellan vårdgivare. Med symbolperspektivet föreslås ideologiskt förändringstryck eller strävan efter legitimitet vara de drivande motiven.

How schools handles threat and violence among pupils could have an effect on the surrounding world, since schools reflect society at large. This study attempts to explore how this is handled within two schools, one secondary school and one upper secondary school. How do the schools work with violence and threats amongst pupils? Who is responsible for what? Is this work based on school guidelines? Why/why not? The theoretical starting-points have been Lundquists implementation-based control-model and an organizational point-of-view using theories about open and closed systems, primarily Meyer and Rowans neo-institutionalism. To gain validity, the study has been carried out by way of triangulation, i.e.