Under mer än 800 år har en bitter konflikt utkämpats mellan främst Irland och Storbritannien. De senaste 50 åren har denna konflikt primärt handlat om Nordirlands varande eller icke varande i unionen med Storbritannien. Den komplexa historien till trots kunde ett avtal tecknas mellan de inblandade parterna 1998. Denna uppsats fokuserar främst på USA som inbegrips i konflikten i början på 90-talet, först som 3: e part och senare som medlare. Frågan författarna ställer sig lyder: Hur såg USA: s agerande som tredje part i förhandlingarna ut, hur påverkade detta agerande desamma, och hur kan detta förklaras med hjälp av teorier kring medling och konfliktlösning? Uppsatsens slutsatser dras utifrån den fallstudie som genomförs med hjälp av medlings- och konfliktlösningsteoretiska ramverk.

Urban planning is not only a matter of architectural trends; it is first and foremost political. This thesis seeks to understand the links between political ideas and visions for the city and the physical structure of the city. The study aims to construct a model to help understand these links, a helpful tool in analysing a city, focusing on the one hand at the physical structure of what I call "The City as a Welfare Provider" and on the other hand at "The City as a Growth Engine". It also sets out to test this model in an empirical study of Stockholm and the soon-to-be built district of Norra Station in the same city.The analysis shows that Stockholm has ambitions to be a welfare provider to its citizens, but have also adopted to a discourse of interurban competition which stresses the importance for the city to enhance economical growth. What is interesting is that the physical structures promoted in the planning documents of Stockholm are nearly exclusively those associated with the model of "The City as a Growth Engine"..

Since the end of the Cold War, foreign aid donors have been using political conditionality to promote human rights, democracy and good governance in recipient countries. This phenomenon has been analyzed and criticized, but mainly from a strictly empirical point of view. In this paper, the legitimacy of political conditionality is analyzed through a normative perspective based on the extrinsic value of efficiency. If the political conditions don?t result in a democratic development, including respect of human rights and good governance, they can not be justified.With at theoretical focus on the donors, based on the unequal relationship between donor and recipient, I am examining the donors? possibility and supposed will to use political conditions in development cooperation.

1945 bildades FN i kölvattnet av andra världskriget enligt principen att ingripa i mellanstatliga krig eller om den internationella säkerheten hotades. Sedan dess har konflikter fått mer komplicerad karaktär och krigföring ändrat skepnad. På så sätt är FN inte anpassat till dagens konflikter eftersom organisationens konflikthantering i grunden bygger på att konflikter är mellanstatliga. Den uppfattningen överensstämmer med realismens perspektiv där stater ses som den viktigaste aktören ? det vill säga att statens suveränitet inte får kränkas.

In today's society social movement are dependent on media as a channel to com-municate their political message and their discourse. Media is an arena for dis-courses but at the same time, along with Attac, one of the actors who struggle to be part of the dominant discourse of the society. This struggle is uneven due to media and the relationship is to some content hegemonic.Attac Sweden was constituted in January 2001 and got an enormous amount of attention in media. But after the riots during the Göteborg European Council in June 2001, that Attac was partly blamed for, the attention in media has faded out. This paper shows that the images of Attac in media hasn?t been favouring the movement, especially during and after the meeting in Gothenburg.

I denna studie undersöks hur TP (Tetra Pak) genom högre grad av legitimitet kan förbättra sitt miljöarbete. För detta ändamål har TP:s miljöarbete undersökts både ur ett internt och externt perspektiv men även ur ett uppifrån och ner-perspektiv. Legitimitet och nyinsitutionalism har använts som teoretiska verktyg i uppsatsen. Vår analys är en fallstudie över TP:s miljöarbete. De slutsatser vi har kommit fram till baseras på de resultat som erhållits genom både interna och externa intervjuer.

In this thesis, the introduction of smoke-free restaurants and bars in several EU Member States in a policy convergence perspective is studied. The thesis sets out to explain whether policy convergence has occurred and the possible explanations connected with it. It is stated that 15 out of 25 EU Member States had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars up to April, 2006. Out of all the countries in the world, 35, including the EU Member States, had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars. The result is analysed by using policy convergence theory and by putting the case in a global environment where tobacco control has become an ever more central theme for public health policy.The EU Member States are different in several ways considered to be important factors for policy convergence, such as cultural, institutional and socio-economic similarities, and the conclusion is made that EU membership has been a most crucial factor for the rapidity of the policy diffusion.

According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

Denna rapport behandlar hur framställningen av ledarskap ser ur ett teoretiskt könsperspektiv. Genom att analysera tidningarna "Chef" och "Dagens Samhälle" med hjälp av kritisk diskursanalys som metodredskap synliggörs i denna rapport den manliga normen som en dominerande del i den sociala och kulturella konstruktionen av ledarskap, detta har även format framställning av manliga respektive kvinnliga ledare. Under analysen framkommer det tydliga mönster i framställningen av de båda könen, där manliga ledare och deras ledaregenskaper betonas som ner naturliga och ofta med en koppling till deras respektive sportsliga karriärer och bakgrund. För de kvinnliga ledarna sker en generell koppling mellan deras ledaregenskaper och deras privata sfär så som familjen, olika relationer och deras barndom. De kvinnliga ledarna och deras karriärväg fram till den ledande positionen framställ som mindre naturliga..

In this thesis the aim is to explore the connection between International presence and Reconstruction of Postconflict states. The focus in this Analyse is the concept of CIMIC which is the institutional concept of Civil-Military Co-operation in International relations and a concept in Peacebuilding Theory. The cases, which are the empirical Material, is Afghanistan and Kosovo, two most-different cases.The theoretical framework is primarily consider the mechanisms successful for the Reconstruction process in general and within CIMIC in particular. This framework including both theories of State failure and International administered Territories as well as Models for Civil- Military Co-operation.The International presence in Postconflict Societies plays a big role, even thou it is very important that initiatives for rebuilding comes from the state within. The essence of CIMIC is the civil component and the military, operating in Peacebuilding and Reconstruction missions.

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.

Hållbar utveckling har, allt sedan Brundtlandrapporten 1987 och Rio 1992, utgjort den fundamentala idén för långsiktiga miljö- och utvecklingspolitiska strävanden och kommit att dominera miljöpolitiken/policyn i många länder. Med utgångspunkt i Hajers teori om diskursiva strategier för ekologisk modernisering, studeras i denna uppsats (1) hur hållbar utveckling påverkat svensk miljöpolitisk diskurs samt (2) hur den diskursiva dynamiken kring skiftet i svensk miljöpolitik - från kretsloppstänkande och Agenda 21 till ekologisk modernisering - efter socialdemokratins nya vision om 'det gröna folkhemmet', bör förstås.I en fallstudie i Malmö studeras närmare hur förändringen av den miljöpolitiska diskursen återspeglas i en lokal kontext samt huruvida det är nationell styrning, lokal logik eller ömsesidiga samspel inom ramen för de diskursiva förändringarna som gör att den lokala praktiken 'blir vad den blir'..

Vi redogör för psykologiska förklaringar till hur identiteter påverkar gruppers benägenhet att sluta sig samman under yttre hot. Vad vi intresserar oss för är vad detta har fått för resultat i väpnade konflikter. Många bedömare menar att de väpnade konflikterna efter det kalla krigets slut uppvisar en aldrig tidigare grymhet människor emellan. Hur är denna möjlig?Med resonemangen om gruppidentiteter som utgångspunkt söker vi utreda vad forskningsvärlden säger om möjligheterna till försoning mellan tidigare fiendegrupperingar.

The subject of sms-loans is examined by using primary and secondary sources?. This form of credit is formally independent from other obligations with a very short credit period and the amount of the loan is low. This form of credits is applied by mobile phones and on the internet by several companies, some of them are presented in this essay. These type of creditors do not come under any sanctions from the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority as is customary for other creditors, they only need to register.

Vi behandlar prostitutionen i Thailand genom att undersöka hur den prostituerades roll har konstruerats i samhället. Empiriskt använder vi oss av en thailändsk statlig rapport, som svarar på FN-avdelningen CEDAWs antidiskrimineringskonvention. I denna rapport redogörs för kvinnorättssituationen i landet. Med feministisk teori gör vi en kvalitativ textanalys för att klarlägga den politiska diskursen kring den prostituerades roll och hur denna har formats. Utifrån vår analys konstaterar vi att den prostituerade hamnar i ett stigma där hon beroende på situationen identifieras som antingen en promiskuös agent med personliga ekonomiska incitament eller som ett hjälplöst offer.