Youth unemployement in Sweden is at an all-time high, a fifth of all university and college students live in poverty and the number of young on welfare is increasing. This study attempts to answer the question of how youth deprivation has been made possible as a consequence of political action, focusing on youth unemployment. I critically examine the role of the Swedish government, the Swedish Labour Organisation (LO), and the various government departments through text analysis, in order to answer the question of how the current discourse on youth position in the labor market. Because youth unemployment is not an isolated phenomena the analysis covers several policy areas, such as education policy, labor market regulation and housing policy. I use discourse theories drawn from Laclau and Mouffe to expose how language is used as an instrument of political power. I conclude that the current situation is a result of policy choices where the young have fallen behind due to lack of political organization. Their situation is not problematized to the required degree and is often explained on an individual level rather than on a structural level. .

This thesis analyzes the media debates generated by the election of Omar Mustafa to the board of the social democratic party, and the appointment of the conservative Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Svantesson. More specifically, the aim is to analyze newspaper material through a discourse analyze, to see if and how religious affiliation effects the possibilities to act as a political representative. Theories of othering and intersectionality serve as theoretical points of departure. Further, chains of equivalence from Laclau and Mouffe?s discourse theory are used to study how categories as ?us? and ?the other? are constructed in the material, and how these processes of categorization relate to the intersection of religion, gender and ethnicity.

Den här uppsatsen är en diskursteoretisk analys av debattören Johan Norbergs författarskap, med ett i stora drag enbart deskriptivt syfte som ämnar på ett strukturerat vis presentera det bakomliggande meningarna i Norbergs författarskap som ett uttryck för en politisk diskurs och beskriva dem i enighet med de teorier för diskursers formerande av Laclau och Mouffe som presenteras i uppsatsens teori och metodkapitel. Uppsatsens frågeställningar handlar om att identifiera de nodalpunkter och ekvivalenskedjor som utför centrala delar av Norbergs diskurs, vilket också görs i resultatdelen. I den mån uppsatsen går utöver en deskriptiv ansats så handlar det om att utifrån en ytlig analys av tidigare forskning kring John Lockes tyckande, jämföra Norberg med detta för att se i vilken mån Norbergs påstående om sig själv som en klassisk liberal överensstämmer med resultaten av analysen. De nodalpunkter som identifieras under analysen är frihet, kapitalism, globalisering och välstånd tillsammans med förklarande ekvivalenser. Resultaten tyder också på att Norbergs beskrivning av sig själv som en klassisk liberal är riktig även om det framkommer en del ganska stora avvikelser från Lockes synsätt..

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of funding and sponsorship of culture within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards funding and sponsorship of culture by comparing the discourse of cultural policy in the 1970s with the discourse of cultural policy in the 1990s. The theoretical and methological starting point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. Another theoretical starting point is Danish cultural policy reasearcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of the development of cultural policy in the Nordic countries, and Norman Faircloughs, of critical discourse analysis, theory of the marketization of discourse. Four governmental cultural policy documents, two from the 1970s and two from the 1990s, are analysed through a model loosely based on Laclaus and Mouffes idea of nodalpoints and elements constituting a discourse.

Youth unemployement in Sweden is at an all-time high, a fifth of all university and college students live in poverty and the number of young on welfare is increasing. This study attempts to answer the question of how youth deprivation has been made possible as a consequence of political action, focusing on youth unemployment.I critically examine the role of the Swedish government, the Swedish Labour Organisation (LO), and the various government departments through text analysis, in order to answer the question of how the current discourse on youth position in the labor market. Because youth unemployment is not an isolated phenomena the analysis covers several policy areas, such as education policy, labor market regulation and housing policy. I use discourse theories drawn from Laclau and Mouffe to expose how language is used as an instrument of political power.I conclude that the current situation is a result of policy choices where the young have fallen behind due to lack of political organization. Their situation is not problematized to the required degree and is often explained on an individual level rather than on a structural level..

Uppsatsen undersöker den svenska diskurs som präglar talet om flexicurity. Fråge-ställningar för studien rör (1) vilka normativa grundmönster som kan utläsas i de olika texterna, (2) på vilket sätt dessa normativa grundmönster bidrar till att konstituera den svenska diskursen om flexicurity och (3) på vilket sätt diskursen om flexicurity kan relateras till samhällsutvecklingen.Frågeställningarna besvaras genom en normvetenskaplig analys av texter som behandlar flexicurity från Europeiska kommissionen, svenska riksdagspartier och den svenska arbetsmarknadens parter. Undersökningen tar sin utgångspunkt i rättsvetenskapliga och rättssociologiska teorier om normativa grundmönster och samhällsutveckling. I studien används en diskursanalytisk metod, inspirerad av Michel Foucault samt Ernesto Laclau och Chantal Mouffes diskursteori. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkter hämtas i huvudsak från Anna Christensens teori om normativa fält och Hålan Hydéns norvetenskapliga teori samt hans teori om samhälls-utveckling.

The environmental situation is becoming increasingly critical. The energy sector and other industries have a big impact on our climate and the public is raising their voice for companies to admit their responsibility towards the environment and society. Companies engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and happily disclose their responsible performance in annual reports. But what messages are they conveying in their CSR-reporting, and what attitudes towards CSR can be found underneath the explicit content? The aim of this study is to discover which discourses exist in CSR-reports from Swedish energy companies, and how these discourses operate.

Denna studie fokuserar på yrkeskunnandet på Barn - och fritidsprogrammet, ett av gymnasieskolansyrkesprogram. Programmet utbildar till yrken inom pedagogiska och sociala yrkesområden samtinom fritids- och friskvårdssektorn och har yrkesutgångar som väktare, personlig assistent,elevassistent, personlig tränare, barnskötare och personal inom boende för personer medfunktionsnedsättning. Eleverna uppmanas att skaffa sig både en yrkesexamen ochhögskolebehörighet.Inom en socialkonstruktionistisk ram och med en diskursteoretisk ansats studeras huryrkeskunnande konstrueras. Studiens empiri utgörs av styrdokument, informationsmaterial ochgymnasieskolors hemsidor. Syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen för yrkeskunnandet på nyaBarn - och fritidsprogrammet.

The intention of this essay is to inquire into the (re-)constitution of gendered/sexed identities in a gothicistic discourse. The used material is the work Atlantica, chapter 5, vol. 2, written by the Swedish historian/Medical professor Olof Rudbeck. I have chosen this chapter for its description of mythological characters relationship with the earth, the sun and the moon. A description based on a concept of strength and reproduction as gendered characteristics.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

Studiens syfte är att undersöka och belysa de normer kring femininitet som modemagasinet ELLE förmedlar genom text och bild. Genom kritisk diskursanalys av text och semiotisk bildanalys av annonser ämnar vi belysa hur tidningen konstruerar kön ur ett genusperspektiv. Vi har använt oss av tre metoder för att studera detta, kvantitativ innehållsanalys, kritisk diskursanalys och semiotisk bildanalys. För att analysera vårt resultat har vi använd oss av fyra olika teorier; Laclau och Mouffe?s diskursteori, Yvonne Hirdmans genussystem, Elwin-Nowak & Thomsson?s Att göra kön samt Judith Butlers modell om den heterosexuella matrisen.

The focus of this study is the ways in which the discourses of the three largest right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia ? Danish Dansk Folkeparti, Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet and Swedish Sverigedemokraterna ? are articulated and on defining which individuals they include and exclude. The discourses of the three parties are compared and analyzed to determine whether they constitute specific nationalist and culturally racist discourses. The problem is addressed by applying a social constructivist theory of nationalism and cultural racism, and specifically the binary opposition ?we? and ?them?, on a material consisting of the respective parties? member magazines from 2007.

I denna studie analyseras den ryska officiella diskursen om Tjetjenienkonflikten under perioden efter Beslandådet 2004. Det ena syftet med studien är att undersöka hur de tjetjenska separatisterna framställs i diskursen. Det andra syftet är att analysera vilken roll framställningen av separatisterna samt begreppet "kriget mot terrorismen" spelar i den ryska politiken och i agerandet i Tjetjenienfrågan efter Beslandådet. I analysen används Laclaus och Mouffes diskursteori samt teorin om den Andra. Resultaten visar att de tjetjenska separatisterna framställs som "internationella terrorister" i diskursen och konstrueras som de Andra i förhållande till det ryska folket.

The purpose with this work is to describe the language that is built around the chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) in Sweden. Our questions are: What does the professional field look like; who writes, about what and for which kind of readers? How do they describe the expressions and the upcoming of CFS? For which reasons can CFS be considered as a medical diagnosis/illness? How can CFS be understood from a social perspective? Our theoretical starting point is a social constructive theory and also Karin Johannisson's theory about medicalization and Foucault?s theory about power. We have from a literature-exposition of Swedish articles from 1989 to 2006, done a social constructive discourse analysis with help from Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, and Fairclough's model of social practices. In our textual analysis we found three dominating discourses: A medical discourse, a social/cultural discourse and a general/popular discourse.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the user service discourses in the field of public libraries that can be identified in four Swedish library journals. Also which underlying causes that control the discourses and the consequences of them are examined. Questions in this study are: which discourses can be found, what characterises them, what kind of different discourses concerning technology in society control the user service discourses and what are the consequences of them. The theoretical starting-point is Ernesto Laclaus and Chantal Mouffes discourse theory. The method is text analytic.