Politicians Week in Visby has since the late 1960s developed to be a fairly unique concept in Swedish politics, which even in recent years has begun to be exported to other countries in Europe. Curiosity and interest around the arrangement of activities and actors have in the past decade become increasingly both nationally and internationally. The purpose of this study has therefore been to find out how ?Almedalsveckan? as a political arrangement emerged and developed. The question that the study mainly tries to answer is how ?Almedalsveckan? became a concept of the open democratic meeting between politicians, Citizens, journalists and various organizations in the Swedish society.

The aim of this master's thesis is a comparative study on units for civic information in Göteborg. The study is based on a project currently in progress at the main public library in Göteborg. It is observed that according to the library's mission statement the library aims to become the most competent intermediary of civic information in Göteborg. This statement suggests a competitive strategy towards other intermediaries of civic information. The mission statement does, however, also state that their goal is to be obtained in cooperation with other intermediaries.

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that Citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.

Local politicians are key actors in the democratic system and their ideas concerning democracy plays a central role in local democratic politics. The study's point of departure is the notion that local politicians are dependent of coherence between practice and theory concerning democracy and in the study of their ideas we acquire knowledge about the democratic practice.This study examines the local politicians? view of Swedish democracy and explores the logic of the discourse that makes statements concerning democracy possible. Twenty local politicians have been interviewed and from the material a discourse have been established through the use of formulation of problems and cause, nodal points and chains of analogy which is compared with democratic ideals.The study comes to the conclusion that a hegemonic discourse exists, in which central nodal points are representative and listening. The idea of the representative system is hegemonic and is based in the liberal democratic ideal although the view of the Citizens rather can be traced to the radical, communitarian and deliberative ideal.

There is a need for examining the accessibility of public web sites and for several reasons. First, public organizations possess considerable amounts information of interest to its Citizens and which ought to be easily accessible. Secondly, international and national guidelines for web publishing support the different types of requirements experienced by web users and, in particular, with regard to accessibility for people with disabilities. The thesis examines the design of public web sites from two different aspects. Web sites can be built up and structured from the management view of the public organization, or, they can be constructed with a view to user needs and requirements.

The European identity plays an important role for the EU and especially within its will to further integrate its Citizens, hence it is a way for individuals to not only identify with its nation, yet also with Europe. Previous research has already established that an individual can possess two territorial identities, such as a national and a European identity, above all it has established how the identities can equally interplay. Further it has been explained how territorial identities are composed of two aspects: civic and cultural. While the previous research has stated how the European identity possesses both aspects, though to varying degrees, little attention has been put to examine how individuals who possesses multiple territorial identification, defines its European identity. This study therefore aims to study which aspects, civic or cultural, individuals with a Citizenship who possess multiple territorial identification, assign their European identity.

Citizenship is fundamental for participation in a democracy. It gives us rights but also responsibilities in the state that we are Citizens of. Citizenship provides us with the opportunity to vote in order to influence who should govern us. However, not all living in a state are Citizens. Some individuals are not included in the political life of the state.In recent years, there has been a rise of nationalist political parties in Europe.

The means to political participation at the local level in Sweden are changing and this change is analyzed through a case study. The first aim is to explore the forms of public political participation in Swedish municipal Älvkarleby, namely public question time in local government, citizen motions and open meetings. A part of this is also to analyze he every day contact between Citizens and representatives. The second aim concerns the reasons why politicians decide to support these means to participationThe empirical material consists mainly of semi structured interviews with local politicians, civil servants, participating Citizens and local press. Official documents such as public minutes are also used in the process of creating an image of local participation.Local political participation is found to be limited but yet having the potential to strengthen democracy, provided that public decision-makers are open to a dialogue with the participants.Using Kjell Arne Røvik's theories of organisational change, the changes in local democracy can be explained as being partly rational, partly symbolic and partly identity shaping political decisions..

Political disenchantment and detachment is proven to be growing in well established democracies. This development brings along concerning behavior regarding general political participation. Fewer Citizens participate in elections, parties are losing members, and the trust in politicians is steadily decreasing. IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) has been registering voter turnout worldwide for the last 60 years and their publications show a decline in voter participation since the 1980s.During the same period of time another development has caught attention, namely the fast progress of the medium Internet. The new generation of Internet functions is called Web 2.0 and allows users not only to create content, but also to interact with each other.This dissertation aims to explore the possibilities emerging when integrating Web 2.0 in political processes.

This essay follows a Media Teacher in her work as a coordinator and an artistic leader for a European project called Legalopoli concerning laws and ethics in a senior level school for 13-16 year-olds in Mora, Sweden. The students write film stories about how their characters have to make choices in ethical dilemma situations. Then the learners create interactive computer games together through practical film work. At the same time we can see how the educator also gets into difficult ethical situations, when she is working with the students. This forces her to self-reflection.

The value of an organization?s availability and transparency towards the public whenever and wherever it is necessary has increased. Internet and the social networks have become essential to most of the Citizens of Sweden but for organizations social networking still is an area that is relatively unexplored. As the Internet and social media progresses it becomes a greater part of people?s lives, which leads to more demands but also a great amount of possibilities for the organizations that participate in this technical revolution.The purpose of this quantitative study is to examine if and how the people receiving the information published on the Växjö and Alvesta police department?s Facebook-page are considering Facebook as a channel of communication.

The North-American sociologist Michael Lipsky has characterized social workers as street-level bureaucrats with a substantial discretion in the relationship between the welfare state and its Citizens. Within Lipsky´s theoretical framework social workers appear as a powerful group that socializes the Citizens to uphold certain expectations towards the welfare state and its (re)distributional programs. From this point of view, it is important to learn more about social workers and the attitudes they express towards the welfare state. The aim of this study is to analyze how the welfare-political attitudes of future social workers are affected by their social background (e.g. class background and ancestral homeland).

Today, librarians tasks may sometimes take on an educational aspect, e.g. when designing educational courses. Our aim with this paper has been to extend our knowledge of peoples learning and learning processes in order to better adapt our educational courses for different user groups. We have investigated what eight senior Citizens wanted to learn about the Internet, and followed seven of them during their course. We have examined how the group experienced a course about Internet use, and how they described their learning and learning processes.

Introduction: Elderly people have much to gain when it comes to physical activity andresistance training. Ageing is a process that every human being has to go through. The mostimportant physical attributes changes, when it comes to handle everyday life and ailment thatusually occurs in the later stages of life. Physical activity and resistance training may help thecommon problem among the elderly, when it comes to cope with issues of pain and strenuouseveryday life that occurs under this ailment. Objective: To identify a senior citizen´sperception about physical activity and attitudes about resistance training.

The Mobile phone has contributed to massive changes in the way that human beings communicate with each other and is a technology that is a part of society?s globalization. Opinions differ in the area of user interface where some feel that mobile phones exclude users such as senior Citizens or users with an intellectual or a physical disability.Universal Design ??design for all?, is a vision that intends to bring about settings, products and services that suits as many people as possible irrespective of an individual?s needs and prospects. The criteria for ?design for all? are among other things flexibility, user friendliness, comprehensibility and a high tolerance for mistakes.The purpose of this essay is to investigate the mobile phones graphic user-interface from the theory of a universal design.