Researchers in the field of political corruption generally expect voters in democratic states to lose trust in corrupted politicians. However, there are cases where corrupted politicians maintain their popularity, a phenomenon studied in this thesis. Focus lies on three cases of political corruption: the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who has been the subject of several judicial investigations and court cases; the impeached former president of Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas; and the German Christian Democratic Union's (CDU) involvement in a party funding scandal. The cases are chosen based on the method of agreement. Berlusconi, Paksas and CDU have all, in spite of their corrupt behaviour, kept or regained popular support among a large group of their country's citizens.

The aim in this essay is to investigate students? attitudes to homework in grade six, and closerstudy the attitudes of the students who think homework is difficult and boring. I have chosento investigate and find out why homework is perceived as boring and cumbersome for somestudents in sixth grade. I hope to identify the aspects that contribute to the negativeconsequences that arise in connection with the homework. The following questions are usedto make the study: Do some students experience homework as boring and difficult? Do somestudents get any form of support at home, if so, how do students perceive the support fromhome? How do students feel that homework affects their leisure?What is the reason that the homework is perceived as difficult and boring according to thestudents? How should the shape of homework change according to the students who believethat homework is difficult and boring?I have chosen to do the study with older students who have more experience with homework.I used both qualitative and quantitative methods, those are interviews and questionnaires.

The underlying purpose of this study is to see whether a library focused solely on providing literature in other languages than Swedish serves as a unifying, integrating force, or as an agent for division and exclusion. The study focuses on the International Library in Stockholm. The authors have created a profile of the visitors of the selected library, concerning their characteristics, their library habits and their perceptions of the International library. This profile has then been compared with the staff?s perception of the visitors as a group.

Today environmental management systems (EMS) are common documents (more correctly, a combination of documents) that direct, steer and regulate environmental efforts within many companies. The intention of EMS is that its guidelines are reflected in how the employee carries out his everyday work tasks. This study aims to illuminate the attitudes that exist regarding the EMS at ALSTOM Power Sweden. By using questionnaires and interviews as a method to communicate with employees,a study of the existing attitudes regarding the EMS was carried out. The results were analyzed categorically and statistically and show that there are consistent attitudes among employees, but that there are also inconsistent attitudes.

This paper is named ?The status of the programme is low? ? Gymnasium teacher?s thoughts and attitudes towards students in the vocational- and the educational programmes. The purpose is, as the title reveals, to examine the attitude of four teachers in the Swedish gymnasium towards the vocational and the educational programmes and the students that attend either one of them. This purpose is accompanied by research which says that the educational programmes? status is higher than one of the vocational programmes.

This study, entitled A constant balance ? Gender equality work in an organisation dominated by women and an organisation dominated by men focuses on attitudes towards gender equality issues in two organisations ? one that is dominated by women and one that is dominated by men. The study is based on the Doing gender theory, which primarily means that gender is something people do, it is constantly changing and it depends on the surrounding context.The organisations in the study are both working with gender equality issues, but the attitudes towards gender equality work are ambiguous. The primary gender equality issue in both organisations is to increase the number of employees of the non-dominant gender. The gender equality work in both organisations is formally supported but it is also being met with informal resistance.

Corporate spending on information technology is persistently increasing and a majority of companies are currently employing an intranet. Intranets have implications for internal communication but are also instruments for the dissemination of corporate culture. Existing research on intranets and corporate culture is limited to Swedish organizations within the industrial or IT-sector and to foreign companies. The purpose of this study is to understand how or if corporate culture can be embedded into an intranet. Specifically, this study addresses the research question: How is corporate culture communicated via an intranet in a Swedish service-sector company? We perform a qualitative case study and find that communication on intranets is still characterized by a traditional top down approach.

This thesis focuses on the problems involving immigrants and their voting behaviour in Sweden. We presuppose that immigrants vote in a far less extent than Swedish citizen according to general statistics. We try to explain and give solutions to this problem. To our help we use both integration theory focusing on multiculturalism and electoral participation theories.Starting off in these two theories, we have further analyzed a number of policies issued to solve the participation dilemma. The policies were issued in order to elevate the socio-economic standards, inform citizens and close the distance between voters and politicians.Our results show that what work best is long term ventures aiming at integrating immigrants to the Swedish society.

This paper deals with the use of Internet at Swedish public libraries. The author asks whether public libraries should or should not limit access to information available on the Internet. Starting from the American discussion, concerning Internet at public libraries, the author shows the Swedish attitudes. The paper demonstrates that many Swedish public libraries have adopted rules forbidding retrieval of certain kinds of information, such as hard-core pornography and racist propaganda. The persons in charge of such actions claim that public libraries should provide high-quality educational literature and should not spread mass-produced, provocative information.

Background: The Swedish life-insurance business has been extensively criticised lately due to broken promises to customers as well as due to scandals that some companies within the business have been involved in. The companies within the Swedish life-insurance business find themselves in a so- called crisis of confidence, something that is created in and by media. A company that finds itself in a crisis of confidence somehow have to manage the situation and crises of confidence can also result in different kinds of changes. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse how individual life- insurance companies manage crises of confidence. As a consequence, the aim is also to investigate in what way crises of confidence are initiators to change.

Background: The Swedish life-insurance business has been extensively criticised lately due to broken promises to customers as well as due to scandals that some companies within the business have been involved in. The companies within the Swedish life-insurance business find themselves in a so- called crisis of confidence, something that is created in and by media. A company that finds itself in a crisis of confidence somehow have to manage the situation and crises of confidence can also result in different kinds of changes. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore and analyse how individual life- insurance companies manage crises of confidence. As a consequence, the aim is also to investigate in what way crises of confidence are initiators to change.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how important computers are for text production in upper secondary school level, and to find out what attitudes some students have towards computers in writing classes. I have let 44 students in the Swedish gymnasium course Swedish B write an argumentative essay. Half of the group wrote using paper and pencil, and the other half used computers. The essays were graded, and the language and length of the texts were analyzed. The students also filled in a questionnaire with questions on computer aided writing classes.The results showed that the texts that were written with computers contained a significant larger amount of words and fewer spelling mistakes.

This thesis aims to describe and characterise the foreign policy change the United States has experienced towards Europe. This thesis claims that the United States is presenting a more supportive attitude today towards the development of the European Union. This more positive attitude has developed during successive U.S. administrations and has become visible since the end of the Cold War.Washington is today less ambiguous and less ambivalent towards the integration of Europe. The United States appreciate that a common foreign- and security policy in Europe is in accordance with American interests.

This essay is about the history of the Swedish board game-industry from the 1970?s to today. The essay focuses on the companies in the business and how they change during this period and about the causes of this change. This essay aims both at accurately describing the development of the industry as well as asking the question of what influence factors from outside of the industry have upon the change during this period of time. The material used in this essay is mainly extracts from interviews with people who have been working in the industry during the period, as well as literature on the subject and product-catalogues from certain years in the time-frame.From this material I have outlined the basic history of the industry.

Introduction: The current research shows that cannabis use is increasing, while alcohol use is decreasing in many countries. The reason for the increase is considered to be the increased availability and that adolescents attitudes towards cannabis has become more liberal. Aim: This qualitative study aimed to examine adolescents attitudes and knowledge about cannabis. Methods: Data has been collected from focus group interviews with adolescents aged 15-18 years, in a west Swedish municipality. Participants were recruited through visits to secondary and upper secondary schools.