The purpose of this thesis is to study the level of democracy within the European Union (EU). To do so the following issues were examined: How the EU works and the efforts it has made to improve levels of democracy; and the degree to which the EU fulfils the criteria set by Robert Dahl in his theory of polyarchy.The study is based on a qualitative text analysis. The focus of the analysis is documents released by the EU that can be connected to democracy, and human and fundamental rights. The theory of polyarchy proposed by Robert Dahl and Joseph Schumpeter?s theory of democracy are the principal theories applied.

In contemporary Sweden political participation among foreign-born Swedes is viewed as low and it is well known that foreign-born individuals do not use their voting rights to the same extent as the general population. At the same time there are numerous ethnic associations around the country who work with various activities involving political, democratic and integration issues. This study aims to study how four members of a Somali association regard, relate to and work with politics, democracy and integration. The study is based on these four people, but also on their relationship with authorities and other agencies in the community. The conclusion of this study shows in brief that the desire to participate politically is great, but that democracy and politics is accessible to all, depending on the level of language skills and what political knowledge the individual has.

In this thesis we investigate the level of deliberative democracy in the current implementation of the 24/7 Agency in the local government. We are interested in how the combination of the two seemingly opposing ideals of Demokratiutredningen and the 24/7 Agency is solved. Our analysis is based on interviews with civil servants from three kommuner in Skåne and a schematic overview of their websites. As a theoretical framework we use New Public Management Theory, Deliberative Democracy Theory, and Citizen Theory.We have found that the local 24/7 Agency is initiated and implemented by public servants. Their experiences and worldview is mirrored in both process and result.

To United Minds, large-scale surveys are an important offering to clients, not least the public opinion poll Va?ljarbarometern. A risk associated with surveys is satisficing ? sub-optimal response behaviour impairing the possibility of correctly describing the sampled population through its results. The purpose of this study is to ? through the use of multivariate outlier detection methods - identify those observations assumed to be non-representative of the population.

The point of departure for this essay is the observation that themunicipality of Lund is giving priority to handicap associations overother forms of associations. This act can be regarded as trespassinginto the realm of civil society. In respect of this, two aspects appearto be particularly interesting to explore. The first is to determinewhich perspective of freedom the municipality of Lund holds. Ireconstruct how the liberal and the communitarian state relate to thenegative and the positive freedom.

Background:Persons living with a mental illness often have to put up with a financial disadvantage. Their ability to work is often limited and because of that they have to rely on the welfare reform to get an income. This income is often low compared to other citizens which by itself is something strongly associated with mental illness. Purpose: The purpose in this study was to describe how people living with a mental illness experience that their economic situation has an impact on their daily life. Method: This study is a literature review containing nine scientific articles from previous research.

This essay will analyse how Asperger?s syndrome and autism spectrum disorder is made in two municipal high schools. I have interviewed school personnel and analysed the schools? policy documents and diagnostic manuals. In this essay AS and ASD are being deconstructed as political and ideological object and I analyse techniques in school, that makes these objects to subjects.The school?s mission is to foster and educate pupils to become desirable citizens and at the same time its aim is to provide an equivalent school.

Several researches asserts that as teachers are responsible for the content of teaching and by formulating teaching "Why, ""How" and "What", that will also give signals to students about what is important knowledge. This essay addresses the difficulties teachers may face in terms of self-disclosure student texts and awareness of this in the design of teaching and writing tasks. Research shows that self-disclosure and self-therapy student texts exist and that teachers are experiencing a difficulty with regard to assessment and treatment.Through qualitative interviews examined seven teachers' design of any, to the student, self-disclosure information from curriculum and policy documents. Another purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which teachers, through the information they give to their pupils, may affect the texts students submit. It turns out that the respondents are united in the belief that they, through their data, may affect the texts they receive from their students when they are the ones that control the content of teaching, and they agree that the curricula gives them a great choice for design data. The survey shows that the perception of the curriculum that will open up for self-disclosure texts differ as some of the respondents believe that the curriculum is very much about the students way to express feelings and opinions, while others believe that they may try to package this data in another purpose or exercise.

The First World War had a definite impact on all of Europe, not to say the entire world. The domain of art was no exception. In Zürich, neutral Switzerland, a group of young creative intellectuals who shared a hostile approach towards the structure of the bourgeois society, with its non-democratic rulers and current nationalism which lead up to the war, united under the artistic movement we today call Dadaism. After the war Dadaism sprung up in several cities throughout Europe, among those Berlin. In Berlin Dadaism became a socialist weapon of propaganda, with its norm breaking artistic manifestations, against the camouflaged conservative government of the new Weimar republic.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the forest managers view of the edu-cation at the School for Forest management at SLU and the first years of em-ployment. Surveys were sent to batches 05/08, 06/09 and 07/10 a total of 136 question-naires were sent out. 80 people answered the survey, this gives a response rate of 59 percent The former students rated according to a 9-grade scale how satisfied they were with the different courses they had attended during their years as students at the school. The courses in mathematics and statistics got the highest marks with an average of 7.3, while the entry-level course in law only got an average of 4.6. A major part of the former students had in the questionnaire enquired a leader-ship course and a business course with focus on negotiation techniques during their education. There is a wide variety of employment opportunities for the graduated students. Timber buyers and forest managers or planners are just a few positions that for-mer students now possess. The study shows that there is a big difference in the first introduction to a new work place depending on where the student got hired.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to compare the perception and significance of reference work in two countries, Sweden and Germany. This will be achieved by means of a literature review of previous research literature and public documents and a content analysis of articles from two library journals.A first step was to examine the historical development of reference work in the selected countries. In connection with this there proved to be distinct phases in the discussion regarding reference work. These phases with their specific discourses, themes and emphases reflected and thus later were confirmed in the second part of the study.The results show that despite some similarities there are also quite a few differences in how reference work is perceived in both countries. For Sweden, the idea of reference work was introduced relatively early.

In recent years, several scandals have been revealed where public employees been involved. Some researchers argue, moreover, that the NPM's rampage has led to an increase in the risk of corruption in public administration. The Regulation on Internal Control shall, according to the government, lead to adequate protection against corruption by analyzing and managing risks. However, Riksrevisionen have criticized the authorities' protection against corruption to be too unstructured and unsystematic. In addition, they questioned whether the regulation really has significance in the work against corruption.

Family centres are established to serve families with children and the personnel usually consists of units of social-workers, preschool staff, paediatric nurses and midwives. The purpose of the study was to examine the social-workers preventive work with families at the family centre. To fulfil the purpose, a qualitative interview with five social-workers was conducted. The theoretical framework referred to attachment and empowerment theory. The results of the study showed that the main part of the work consists of giving advice and support to parents.

The aim of this essay is to explore the lived citizenship and its ideal. First, the form and expression of citizenship practice and ideal is explored through a qualitative interwiev study of ten citizens in the southern suburbs of Stockholm. The perception and expectations of the nature of citizenship, presented by the informants, is then compared to their citizen ideal, as well as to the ideal presented and promoted by the Swedish government. The point of departure is theory of democracy. The essay calls attention to an observed lack of empirical studies in the field of deliberative theory of democracy as well as studies that more broadly bring the theory down to empirical earth.

In the last decade the Italian authorities have tried to adapt themselves to a united European asylum system, in the European Union, through the adoption of legal reforms, intended to improve the conditions of asylum seekers in Italy. Despite these reforms, asylum seekers and refugee?s living conditions are far from covered. The aim of this study is to explore the different functions of social work in the Italian reception process regarding unaccompanied minors and their implications on the wellbeing of the unaccompanied minors. This study was conducted through several interviews with both social workers, which in some way worked with unaccompanied minors, and the unaccompanied minors themselves.