When studying the voting behaviour of the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) concerning the Services Directive within the EU, what patterns can be observed? With a starting point in previous findings about voting behaviour, this study analyses the results of the given Roll-call votes in the European Parliament in regards to the Services Directive. Here I focus on the division of votes within and between the member states and the parliamentary political groups; with the aim to identify patterns that might show clash of opinion concerning this issue. I found that ideology seems to play a role in the MEPs voting behaviour. Parties on the far left reach the highest level of cohesion and together with the party on the far right, they voted against the Directive, but due to different reasons.

How stakeholders can influence EU in global environmental politics and what consequences and risks this brings are heavily debated. Some scholars argue that civil society are being disenfranchised from the global political arena while others seem to find them having influence in areas where they normally shouldn´t have any influence. In this this paper I will compare the Europan Union policy on GMOs with the process in producing the Water Framework Directive using an analytical framework to study the level of stakeholder influence. Following the framework I will use two types of data namely NGO participation and Goal attainment. The data once summarized will be analyzed by using the methods of process-tracing and counterfactual analysis.My conclusions regarding both cases are that stakeholders, most notably, were able to influence policymaking in EU by using the internal revisions and by networking in smaller partnerships.

Begreppet jämställdhetskonsult myntades 1993 och konsulten nämns ofta som en viktig aktör i litteratur om jämställdhetsarbete. Däremot finns i princip ingen forskning i ämnet. I denna uppsats visar vi på jämställdhetskonsultens roll och funktion i organisationers jämställdhetsarbete samt ger förklaringar till branschens uppkomst och tillväxt. Genom främst intervjuer med flera jämställdhetskonsulter har vi funnit att konsultens tjänster efterfrågas i inledningsfasen av organisationers jämställdhetsarbete, men att detta ofta utvecklas till ett längre samarbete. Jämställdhetskonsulten kan ta flera roller.

In this thesis I have decided to take a closer look into my own ?backyard?. A river that runs through my hometown, Akureyri, has been a thorn in some people?s side. Glerá river has taken lives but it has also given the town possibilities to develop.

Denna uppsats undersöker de moraliska grunderna för patenträtt till mjukvara. Detta problemområde utgör en del av ett bredare principiellt dilemma inom den immaterialrättsliga diskussionen, där gränsen för intellektuellt ägande har debatterats flitigt. Genom att undersöka inutitioner och strukturerade teorier i den filosofiska litteraturen formulerar och försvarar vi en normativ analysmodell som vi anser utgöra en lämplig utgångspunkt i en undersökning av en patentinstitutions legitimitet. Denna analysmodell ligger sedan till grund för en kritisk textanalys av EU-kommissionens förslag till direktiv för mjukvarupatent i Europa. Vi kommer i denna fram till att EU-kommissionens argumentation brister på en rad punkter eftersom man inte tar hänsyn till de värden som vi anser vara önskvärda.

I have studied how human networks can affect decision-making and different constellations. The primary purpose is to clarify the possibility to affect the decision to move the infrastructure investments from Region Skåne to Region Västra Götaland. The study starts at the EU-level and continues to the Government and on to the region. Region Skåne is studied especially since it was from there the infrastructure investments were moved.The conclusion is that there is no specific representation in the government that represents regional topics, in spite of the fact that almost 30% of the members of the Parliament come from these regions. There is no discussion between the members that could be considered a networking-activity beneficial for the regions.

Uppsatsens syfte är att besvara vad som föranleder våldsamma yttringar, likt upploppen i Paris 2005 och Rosengård 2005. Jämförelsen mellan Paris och Rosengård medför en följdfråga om det finns liknande tendenser i Rosengård att fullskaliga upplopp likt de i Paris kan äga rum.Vi använder oss av en teori som bygger på att det saknas tillit mellan etniska grupper och majoritetsbefolkningen som kombinerat med en social utsatthet bildar en problematisk bild. Dessa två faktorer, brist av tillit och utsatthet, skapar ett spelrum för missnöje vilket kan yttra sig i våldsamheter. Det förefaller för oss vara faktorer vilka livnär sig av varandra, likt en ond cirkel. Variation finns emellertid mellan olika områden, där skillnader i graden av misstro och utsatthet visar på två olika situationer.

Varför vann Hamas valet? Valresultatet som blivit så uppmärksammat och ifrågasatt av omvärlden vill vi undersöka. Vårt syfte är att hitta en förklaring till varför det palestinska folket röstade på ett av omvärlden terrorstämplat parti. I vår undersökning utgår vi från fyra olika väljarteorier som kan härledas till den politiska kontexten. Teorierna förklarar valresultat utifrån 1) ideologisk närhet 2) politisk agenda 3) tydlighet i kommunikation av ståndpunkter 4) partiernas kompetens.

This thesis studies how the Swedish government articulates social exclusion within the spring budget of 2007. Through a discourse theoretical approach, inspired by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the empirical findings are reconstructed through the nodal point of labour and two chains of equivalence, based upon the duality between employment and unemployment. By viewing social exclusion as a phenomenon concerning discourse, identity and politics, this duality forms the basis of a deconstructive and hegemonic analysis.I argue that the term social exclusion is a powerful and flexible political concept in that it obscures ideological assumptions and objectives as well as draws attention away from alternative social concepts. Throughout the thesis social exclusion is stressed as a social category constituting the relation between individual and society. Hence I argue that it is of vital importance that the values underlying its usage are made explicit and that social exclusion as a floating signifier is made an object of academic analysis..

Alltsedan EG-medlemskapet 1995 har Sverige och det svenska samhället med dess myndigheter i ökad grad påverkats av gemensamma europeiska processer, tankegångar och värderingar. I studien undersöks europeiseringsprocessen i den svenska statsförvaltningens kärnfunktioner; rättsväsendet och försvaret. Teoretiska utgångspunkter hämtas i huvudsak från Radaelli, Jacobsson och Johan P. Olsen. Inledningsvis ges en kortare introduktion om berörda myndigheter, innan ett antal centrala företeelser inom respektive myndighet lyfts fram för närmare granskning.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the librarian discourses that can be identified in the job advertisements of today, to examine how the discourses differ and also how these discourses might influence the librarian profession and its status. The method of investigation is a qualitative analysis of printed sources, using Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory as well as the theory of professions as a theoretical base. The thesis shows that two discourses can be identified in job advertisements for 2004, one public librarian discourse and one scientific librarian discourse. The major difference between the two discourses are work tasks where the public librarian discourse very often contains areas of responsibility and development work, whereas the scientific librarian discourse often contains administrative work tasks. Other differences include a great demand for driving licences and an interest in children and youth in the public librarian discourse, something which is not asked for at all in the scientific librarian discourse where there is a great demand for knowledge of languages instead.

Uppsatsen syftar till att ta reda på hur det kommer sig att medlemsländerna i EU ger upp delar av sin suveränitet för att ingå ett samarbete kring utrikes- och säkerhetspolitiska frågor (GUSP). För att besvara frågan används en byråkrati- och en diplomatiteori för med utgångspunkt i de förändringsfaktorer som ligger bakom framväxten av GUSP skapa en bred bild av detta unika internationella samarbete. Genom att se till interna drivkrafter och samarbetsvinster visar vi hur samarbetet ständigt utvidgats. Som exempel lyfter vi fram ?En Europeisk Säkerhetsstrategi? från 2003.

The aim of this essay is to examine whether democracy in St Petersburg isconsolidated or not. Since studies of democratic transition have been rarelyconducted on post-communist cities, this study seems fruitful. Using the Linz andStepan theory, where democracy is considered consolidated when it has become?the only game in town? and Orttung's three criteria legitimacy, politicalpolarisation and policy effectiveness; this essay analyzes people's attitudes,political behaviour, the rule of law and civil society in St Petersburg. Theory isused to interpret the material mainly consisting of two interviews and newspaperarticles.

The aim of this essay is to illustrate a fundamental question; what is a democracy allowed to do to protect itself from enemies? I´ve chosen to analyze the conflict between the two values; individual integrity and state´s security. The individual integrity refers to every person's right to have a protected sphere, and the stat´s security refers to its right to protect itself, and these two positions are often time incompatible. This conflict of value is shown in a normative analysis, where depending on which perspective or normative logic is seen as primate, it gives different conclusions to what a democracy should do to defend itself.To demonstrate how severe the threats are against the society, I choose to examine a specific part of the organized crime, the outlaw motorcycle gangs. They have a special position in affecting the legal system because they have an explicit aim to influence the judicial system with scaremongering and threats.

The aim of this thesis is to discuss and analyse the media debate about feminist self-defence, by pointing out the pros and the cons. The arguments in favour could be separated into three different parts: statistical arguments, psychological arguments and justice arguments. The counter arguments could also be separated into three parts: general arguments, violence-related arguments and gender-related arguments. In short, feminist self-defence is built on women's experiences of men's violence. It contains three different parts to help women avoid violence, threat of violence, insult and sexual harassment.