AbstractThe purpose with the study is to see if it is possible to create well functioning and democratic government and parliament in Kosovo, within a near future thru social capital. I have some research questions that will help me reach my purpose: 1. Are Kosovo?s institutions effective and democratic today?2. Does social capital exist in Kosovo today?3.

Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att genom en fallstudie av kriget i Sierra Leone (1991-2002) sökaefter konventionella inslag i aktören Revolutionary United Fronts (RUF) våldsbeteende ochdärigenom undersöka huruvida krigets natur kan beskrivas utifrån ett rationellt eller irrationelltperspektiv. För att uppfylla syftet med uppsatsen har två frågeställningar använts; ?Finns detkonventionella inslag i aktören RUF:s våldsbeteende?? och ?Kan krigets natur i Sierra Leonebeskrivas utifrån ett rationellt eller irrationellt perspektiv??. Teorianknytningen utgörs av Carl vonClausewitz teorier om krigets natur.Resultatet av undersökningen visar att konventionella inslag i form av åtskillnad mellankombattanter och icke-kombattanter, konventionella medel och metoder samt politiskt syfte går attfinna i RUF:s våldsbeteende.Sammantaget visar fallstudien på att RUF:s våldsbeteende inte kännetecknades av ett enda kaos,ett allas krig mot alla på etniska, religiösa eller ideologiska grunder och därför inte kan beskrivassom ett irrationellt fenomen. I stället menar jag att krigets natur som det gestaltade sig under krigeti Sierra Leone går att beskriva utifrån ett rationellt perspektiv, typiskt för konventionella krig, medgrund i Clausewitz teorier om krigets natur..

Taiwan's recent democratization seem to have rallied a wider support of the notion of a national identity amongst its citizens which in the year 2000 led to the election of the pro-independence party DPP and President Chen Shui-bian. Meanwhile, China insists on the "one country, two systems" formula, regarding Taiwan as merely a Chinese province, and continues to fight any Taiwanese initiative towards sovereignty. Through a narrative perspective, this essay analyzes the self-conscious national identity-building quest embarked upon by DPP and President Chen Shui-bian. The analysis consists of three parts. Firstly, a text-analysis of President Chen Shui-bian's speeches is conducted to examine in what way he enforces and legitimizes the identity-building-process through narratives.

Deliberative democracy theory holds that democracy is about active partaking on formal and informal arenas in the public sphere where fairly equal citizens can obtain knowledge, discuss, evaluate and affect the political agenda before decisions are made.In line with the deliberative vision of online deliberation social media such as Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Twingly offer such formal and informal arenas where people can obtain knowledge and interact with other people, and politicians.The Swedish EU-Presidency was the first EU-presidency to make use of social media and it was the first time the Swedish Government Offices used other social media than email and chat features.This thesis will examine the Swedish EU-Presidency?s ambitions of using social media as well as the actual use of social media on the Swedish EU-Presidency website in the light of deliberative democracy theory.The aim of this thesis is, through a case study, to analyze the Swedish EU-Presidency?s use of social media in the light of deliberative democracy theory..

This Bachelor Thesis is entitled "WTO-spelarena för utvecklingsländer? En studie om avgörande faktorer för utvecklingsländers förmåga att implementera sina regimpreferenser". Through our empirical results in conjunction with realist theories, this Bachelor thesis attempts to answer the questions: (1) How does the decline in American power, the nature of existing institutional structure and Third World unity, influence the ability of developing countries to secure its preferred regimes? (2) What function do informal meetings in the WTO have? (3) How does access to informal meetings influence the ability of developing countries to secure its preferred regimes? The paper makes use of case studies from the Ministerial meetings in the Doha development round.The conclusion is that access to these meetings is an important variable to explain the extent to which the Third World can be able to secure its preferred regimes. The degree to which developing countries can secure their preferred regimes is therefore a function of four variables: the nature of existing institutional structures; Third World unity, the attitude and power of the United States and foremost access to informal meetings..

This essay focus on the European Union and its democracy both from a national perspec­tive and from an international perspective. Furthermore, the essay center on the con­cept of democratic deficit, this in order to study the European Union´s status regarding the democratic legitimacy. This study intends to nuance the problems that previous research and previous researchers have de­fined as democratic deficits in the European Union and ends up in conducting a textual anal­ysis of the latest European Union treaty, the Lisbon Treaty.The aim is that by using previous research on the democratic deficit in the European Union examine whether the Lisbon Treaty has enhanced the EU's position regarding democratic legitimacy. In other words, my study aims to identify what the deficit is and if it exists.The results show that the Lisbon Treaty has been trying to improve the democratic legitimacy and that some practical adjustments have been made, but it also show that there is much that still can be improved before citizens have full democratic rights..

AbstractOil rich states all over the world share a common feature. They are less likely than other states, depending on other resources, to be ruled democratically. In this essay Saudi Arabia has been studied with the purpose of trying to find which mechanisms that lie behind why oil rich states do not have institutions or institutional change that promotes democracy.Saudi Arabia has the world's largest known reservoir of oil. The oil brings huge revenue each year to the Saudi Arabian government. Why have Saudi Arabia not developed democratically when their economic growth suggests that to be a natural step? Under the framework of historical institutionalism and path dependency theory, I have used process tracing trying to track the mechanisms behind Saudi Arabia's authoritarian rule down.

The purpose of this study was to examine work related stressors and related coping strategies among case managers at a domestic violence shelter in the United States. We further wanted to examine whether locus of control among the participants could be related to work related stress and coping strategies. Qualitative interviews were performed with eight case managers to gain knowledge about the stressors and coping strategies they used by examining their thoughts, feelings and experiences. The result showed that the case managers experience a number of stressors in their work environment such as system problems (e.g., lack of re¬sources and time pressure) and emotional stress. Coping responses among the case managers included efforts to alter the problem, so called problem focused coping, efforts to control emo¬tions, so called emotions focused coping and social support from colleagues.

There is a known link between relative deprivation and street crime among market liberal countries. Although some research has been done with cross-national data, there is none to suggest that the observed link is as valid in a country well known for its extended welfare and generous social expenditure like Sweden. The following study uses longitudinal data to see if this recognized link between relative deprivation and street crime also stands in a country with almost a century long tradition of striving for social-, economic- and cultural equality. Even though Sweden, over the last decade, has been subjected to a series of deregulations due to policy changes at national level, and with a following rise in inequality, it is still considered to be one of the most equal countries in the west. It is therefore not unlikely that the high degree of social security will reduce the negative impact of relative deprivation on social relations among its citizens, perhaps enough so that the correlation will be significantly weakened.

The aim of this paper is to map out the purposes of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. This is done in order to see if humanitarian tendencies have been an increasingly cause for the UN to initiate an intervention with military means. This paper uses the time period from the end of the cold war until today, since that historic occurrence increased the U.N.?s involvement in peacekeeping. By using this time span it enables the survey to indicate changes in the mapping of humanitarian interventions.

German regional policy has changed from a strategy of redistribution to a regional growth focused policy- strategies, which are often seen as opposites. Both policies, however, still have to relate to the constitutional objective ?to achieve equal living conditions for the country?s citizens.?This paper examines what effects a political change may have had on the interpretation of the German constitutional objective. Its aim is to examine German regional policy and its relationship to justice, using John Rawls? A Theory of Justice.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this essay has been to analyse an incident that received huge attention in the media that took place on February 24 2011 involving the famous fashion designer John Galliano. Galliano who at the time served as a creative director at French luxury fashion house Dior hurled anti-Semitic remarks during an altercation to a couple at Paris café La Perle. We intended to do a study of the material in two parts. The primary focus of our thesis was to analyse six different newspaper articles that involved the incident. We chose to analyse three articles from Great Britain and three from the United States to get a versatile image of the incident.

As technology have continued to develop over the latest decades and become more advanced the pressure on the general citizens understanding of technology becomes a essential part to live in our society today. The transition have affected our society in great ways and have made a great impact on different groups, one of them being the elderly population in our society. The purpose of this study is to examine how the fast technological development in the latest decades have affected the elderly in our society. This from their perspective by gathering empirical data through semi-structured interviews with elderly people involved in the Agnes-project, a research project focused on improving the general quality of life for older people and increase their knowledge about technology. The study has shown that after the older peoples time involved in the Agnes-project their quality of life had improved in different areas. Areas such as increased cognitive activity, increased interest in new technology and an improvement in their communication with friends and family.

This comparative linguistic textstudy focuses on the relationship between a newspapers own outspoken political standpoint and it´s ambition of being an unbiased provider of objective information. This connection becomes particulary interestering in times of election when a newspapers role as provider of information is of great importance for the citizens. When a newspaper reports an event to the public, the reporter always has to choose from a small selection of possible linguistic forms when representing the story. Through linguistic analysis of these forms we can see that the final choice is often not a complete arbitrary one. We compared two daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Dala-Demokraten, that stod on opposite sides in the Swedish EMU-elections 2003.

Kalmar Municipality has in 2008-2010 made an effort to educate managers on gender, with the goal of mainstreaming gender into public activities so that all citizens should feel safe in that treatment and services are designed and resources are distributed equally to both sexes living conditions and needs. The overall aim of this study was to examine whether the training effort has paid off, and how gender mainstreaming has been implemented in the different activities. We have used a qualitative approach, which we examined through interviews managers' approach to gender equality.Gender was generally described as an important issue of all respondents, and all were working to mainstream gender into their activities and workplaces. The results show that the operational and management needed clearer directives and strategies in their efforts to promote gender equality. Education was necessary because personal definition of gender may differ from the control contents of the documents.