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..

Self-destructive behaviour is a more and more occurring phenomenon in today?s society and there are mostly young girls who are affected by this behaviour. There are different explanations to why the phenomenon appears. The purpose of this research essay is to give a literature overview of the phenomenon of self-harming behaviour of young girls. Two research questions have been used to study this phenomenon; How can groups of friends contribute to reinforce an identity with the self-destructive behaviour among young girls? How can Internet contributes to reinforce an identity with the self- estructive behaviour among young girls? For the analysis this research essay uses the social constructive theoretical perspective.

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..

Forum för levande historia och Brottsförebyggande rådet genomförde 2004 en studie bland 10 600 skolungdomar för att undersöka deras tolerans. Resultatet av undersökningen visade att det fanns en relativt stort grupp intoleranta skolungdomar i Sverige. Syftet med min studie är att undersöka intoleransen bland årskurs nio eleverna på min partnerskola, samt om deras eventuella antisemitiska åsikter kan förändras genom att besöka ett koncentrationsläger och träffa en före detta lägerfånge, för att sedan jämföra mitt resultat med Brå:s Intoleransrapport. Studien grundar sig på enkäter som har delats ut till årskurs nio eleverna samt en del intervjuer med samma elever. Resultatet av studien visar tydliga tecken på att studiebesök fungerar som ett bra komplement till den vanliga undervisningen, då både andelen förintelse förnekare och intoleranta elever har minskat i och med besöket.

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.

AbstraktThe purpose of this study is to examine how Swedish politicians and textbooks in social science choose to describe communism, this in order to see if there is a main discourse that controls what communism is associated with. The study is structured by the following question: How does Swedish politicians and textbooks choose to describe communism, is there a main discourse that controls how language is used? The method chosen for the analysis is discourse analysis. Chain analogy is used to structure the studied texts discursive content. Four textbooks in social science are analyzed and a number of public government documents that contains discussions about communism and the agency Forum för levande historia.The analysis shows that there is a clear discourse among leading politicians that dictates that communism is to be associated with a spectrum of negative words and concepts, but when it comes to the textbooks there isn?t an equally clear discourse and the textbooks differ among themselves in general content.

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.

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.

The xenophobic attitudes in Europe are stronger than even. Never before have the member states had as many right-wing parties in action. The aim with this report is therefore to consider whether the Schengen cooperation has had an influence on the development of xenophobia in the member states of EU. The Schengen cooperation became a part of the European Union in 1997, with the aim to abolish the internal border controls for citizens and strengthen the external boarders towards non-members. The intention is furthermore to investigate whether the distance to Schengen ?s external boarder has an impact on the xenophobic attitudes.Three countries are compared: Italy, Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Uppsatsen ämnar att behandla och beskriva varför platsen för den nya arenan för Djurgården Fotboll är så viktig utifrån supportrarnas perspektiv och var de anser att den bör ligga. För att nå denna målsättning har jag studerat olika forum för att se hur supportrarna har argumenterat i arenafrågan från 2006 fram till 2011. Jag har utöver detta även kompletterat med två stycken intervjuer med supporteranhängare till föreningen . För att förstå varför platsen för den nya arenan är viktig för supportrarna har jag använt mig av teorier om identitet och hemmet.     Mina resultat av undersökningen visar att det är framförallt de historiska värdena som medför att arenan måste byggas i ett visst område, eftersom supportrarna ser detta området som en del av klubbens och deras egen identitet.Nyckelord: Identitet, Platsidentitet, Djurgården Fotboll, Supporter, Hemmet, Arena Olsson, Niklas (2011) Östermalms IP ? platsens betydelse i planeringsprocessens av en ny arena Kulturgeografi III, Grundnivå, examensarbete för kandidatexamen i kulturgeografi, 15 hp Handledare: Urban Nordin Spåk: Svenska .

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.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to analyze the relation between the discursive formation and the optical formation in the public library-apparatus. An ongoing individualization process in the library field and in society at large is used as a backdrop in the analysis. Discourse analysis is used as a method to explore the main Swedish library periodicals Biblioteksbladet, Bibliotek i Samhälle and DIK-forum. All issues from the years 1999 and 2009 have been used as material. The main analytical instruments applied in the analysis of this material are Michel Foucault's terms dispositive, apparatus and diagram.

I denna fallstudie av Region Skåne undersöks uppkomsten av nya forum för samarbete i samband med regionbildning. För att undersöka detta använder vi oss av tre politiskgeografiska begrepp. I Skåne har kommunerna delats upp i fyra samverkansorgan i vart och ett av regionens fyra hörn, detta för att kunna hävda de egna intressena gentemot regionen. Kommunerna i varje hörn har olika grad av beroende till regionen och undersökningen visar att ju större beroendet är desto mer integrerat blir samarbetet inom det egna samverkansorganet.För att skapa en förståelse för ämnet ges en kort presentation av hur regionaliseringsprocessen har sett ut i Europa, Sverige och Skåne. Materialet till analysen utgörs främst av intervjuer och rapporter där vi fokuserar på tillväxt- och utvecklingsfrågor.

Vårt arbete handlar om hur elever uppfattar elevinflytande i skolan samt om de har något inflytande i skolan. Tidigare forskning har visat att elever får inflytande i skolan, fast det är oftast väldigt begränsat, om det ens existerar. Klassråd och elevråd är platser som eleverna anser att de har inflytande på. Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ metod med teckningar och intervjuer i vår undersökning. Det är 16 elever som är med i studien och alla går i årskurs 3.

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.