This master thesis explores the nature of public participation as a central and most current subject in the field of urban planning. A first impression exposes a seemingly unanalyzed consensus on the values and benefits which public participation provides the process of urban planning. The city may be a concern to all its inhabitants; hence knowledge and opinions of the local public are of great importance for the urban development. But is there really something new to these assumptions, and are the advantages of increased public participation in urban planning always obvious?  By using action research as a main method, I have put myself into the context of the Swedish municipality of Nacka and their projects dealing with the development of public participation.

A controversial party?s entry into parliament - a review of Expressen?s depiction of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna)The purpose of this essay was to study how Expressen presents the Sweden Democrats, as well as reasoning about the effects this depiction could have on the Citizens? opinion. Using a quantitative method I studied 122 articles, and through a qualitative method four of these could be further analyzed to reach a deeper result. The theoretical perspective that was applied in this study was primary agenda-setting and framing theory, to illuminate the power of media. The result showed that a prominent theme was to present Sweden Democrats as racists.

Between 1860 and 1940 approximately 1,1 million Swedish Citizens emigrated to North America. But over 200 000 of them returned to Sweden. In this essay I have tried to estimate the impact of these people on the Swedish society. To make a deeper analyze possible, I have studied the parish of Glima?kra in southern Sweden and tried to trace the immigrants? lives after their return to Sweden and thus estimate their impact on society.By statistical analysis of migrants between Sweden and USA and between the parish of Glima?kra and USA I have concluded that the result can be used as a model for Sweden on a national basis.

The aim of this essay is trying to understand the ideological changing process over the last decades and the ideological meaning of the relatively new conception lifelong learning as well, and how it comes that the opportunities offered the individual pre-school child and the individual compulsory-school pupil to assimilate the so important learning, differs so dramatically all though the expressed ambition to offer each and every one equal opportunities. What are the ideological structures that are, and have been in function, that carries and have carried the perceptions of the use and value of fostering and education?In a time with the welfare ideology in a hegemonic position, it was seen important that the state took major responsibility for the education of the Citizens. In our time, it appears, an economist ideology has taken the hegemonic position, and education is becoming an increasingly economic issue, and equality is decreasing along with, as in general society, the increasing of segregation within the educational system..

At the moment, democracy enhancing projects can be seen everywhere on the municipal level. The purpose of this thesis is to explain how the city of Lund takes on this challenge, why they have chosen to carry out citizen councils and if these are a good way to intensify democracy and open communication channels between Citizens, the administration and the elected officials.The theoretical framework consists of seven arguments for gaining citizen influence on policy, and as a counterweight three critical arguments that opponents of participatory democracy often use are added.After a survey over both the Swedish national trends in municipal renewal and the last years work in Lund, the analysis goes on showing that most of the arguments point to the disadvantage of the citizen councils. Even though legitimacy possibly is enhanced by the project, there are probably better ways to open up for more communication and intensify democracy in the local community..

The purpose with this thesis is to investigate how to design a urban space so that it is experienced safe and how to implement this at an actual site. Knowledge on the subject has been gathered through litterature studies and interviews with experts. Through an analysis of the site with surroundings and studies of projects with similar problems, practical actions have been observed. Part taking in the municipalities planning process has given insight in the projekt as an whole and the interests of different parties. There are many different opinions about what the word safety means. It is a feeling depending on situation, that is affecting our daily behaviour.

The intention with the research was to investigate the role of civil society in the Kenyan democratization process. The research intends thus to analyze (1) the role of civil society in Kenya's transition to democracy (1990- 2002), and (2) the role of civil society in the further democratization process (2002- 2013).The results of the research demonstrates that the role of civil society played a crucial role in Kenya?s transition to democracy given that civil society provided with a multiparty- system in 1991. In addition, civil society endowed with education for Citizens in order to attain constitutional reforms. As a result, Kenya accomplished a transition to democracy in 2002.

Daily Citizens are informed by the media about the environment and the climate changes. The schools purpose is to educate students according to events that are of current interest and take place in present time. According to Swedish curriculum, Lpf94, all Swedish education should include and discuss the problems surrounding durable development. The purpose of the study is to se how the textbooks in History, Social studies and Geography and their contents meet the demands of the curriculum. The study shows that only the textbooks in geography meets the demands that the curriculums have on durable development.

Differences between groups or individuals in a society with regards to access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) are known as the digital divide. The digital divide pertains to differences in physical access to computers and the Internet as well as knowledgein using technology. Important factors affecting the digital divide are disabilities, age, gender, socioeconomical background, ethnicity and geography. The digital divide appears on several levels: internationally, nationally, regionally and locally. Individuals who, for some reason, have limited or no access to information and communication technologies risk, among other things, to experience social exclusion.

AbstractThis thesis handles the subject about emergency preparedness. The cases that are chosen are Sweden and the tsunami catastrophe and Great Britain with the bombings in London. The purpose with this case study is to reveal what factors that are important for an adequate emergency preparedness plan by studying Sweden?s and Great Britain?s emergency preparedness plans and how they handled the two catastrophes. The questions for the report are as follows:1.

In this project we have explored digital tools for service management on the bicycle paths of Malmö. This was done through the participation of Citizens in order to attempt to discern how such interactions can be eased using a mobile app, as well as how this app can be designed in order to appear trustworthy with user friendly interactions. We have explored this field by using goal-oriented design through interviews, prototyping and user tests. We have created a digital prototype as a possible solution for how the interactions can be done. Throughout the process interviews were held and user tests with selected members of the user group. To explore the concepts we have used paper prototypes in order to establish the design and then defining the interactions with the help of a digital prototype. Finally we have concluded that a general app for bikers in the city would be functional and that a longer study in the effects of such an app would be interesting as a continuation of this work..

The purpose with this essay is to examine how arts and politics integrate to raise urgent messages and call upon social changes. Performance art as an artistic manifestation against the surveillance society has been studied to clarify this integration and through an empirical examination of the anarchistic performance group The Surveillance Camera Players. This group formed in New York City 1996 as a manifestation against the increased use of surveillance cameras in public places in Manhattan. Through performance in front of these cameras, The Surveillance Camera Players are able to express their protest against the surveillance society which, occurring to them, violates Citizens constitutionally right to privacy. The development and signification of the surveillance society are examined through theoretical perspective by foremost Michel Foucault, but also by contemporary scientist in that field.

Moldova is one of Europe?s poorest countries with a struggling business environment and an unpredictable political situation. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the implications of corruptions and why networks have come to play a key role in the Moldovan culture and if the formations of network are due to heritage or an effect of functionalism. The focus of the study is also to explain how the networks develop and the formation and maintenance of loyalty and trust among the members of the network. The study is of a qualitative nature that uses a key informant sampling method to get access to members of different business networks.

The study consist of an investigation regarding the implementation of reassurance policing in Sweden and include a survey conducted among some of the local police offices in Stockholm County. The aim of the study is to investigate how the police officers working in the local polices offices experience the implementation of the local police offices and if the implementation of local the polices offices matches the police authority´s purpose with the project. The study uses the theoretical framework from political scientist Michael Lipsky calledStreet-level bureaucracy - Dilemmas of the individual in Public services which discuss the role of street-level bureaucrats and their influence in the implementation. Included in the study is also two different perspectives on governing in public sector called top-down perspective and bottom-up perspective. The findings of this paper shows that the police officers are in general positive towards the implementation and that there´s a duality among the police officers regarding the proximity to the Citizens..

New political parties are increasing as phenomena in Swedish politics. Some of these parties have gained much attention in the media, and recent examples are Junilistan, Feministiskt initiativ and Sjukvårdspartiet. Media plays an important role for political parties as it is a way for the parties to communicate with the Citizens. Therefore this essay examines how these three new parties have been pictured in media lately, and with what arguments they are discussed. This is done by argument analysis of editorials in five Swedish newspapers.