The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the extent of the civil rights political participation on a municipality level. The starting-point is the participatory democratic theory. I have chosen to make a case study of the extent of participation among KPR ? the board of the pensioners in the municipality of Skara. KPR is represented by fourteen members from the seven existing associations for pensioners.

The downsizing of the Swedish armed forces during the late 20th century and early 21 th century has caused several thousand people to choose a different career. This undergraduate thesis investigates the self-observed employability and work-place competence of a number of Swedish armed forces officers who has made the transition to a civil career. The thesis seeks to answer questions about how the transition is comprehended, how military merits and competences are valued in civil work places and which differences in ability to use their competences the respondents experience. The study is made using qualitative interviews, which are analysed using a miexed method inspired by phenomenological method. The findings include that the essence of the respondents emplooyability is a shared work indentity as miltary officers and a common experienced problem in translating their merits.

In recent years, many efforts on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferations have been made by non-nuclear states and civil society. The dissatisfaction has motivated non-governmental organizations to pursue a ?humanitarian initiative? based on international conferences aimed at highlighting the humanitarian consequences of certain arms and nuclear weapons. This study examines the five key roles, according to Rapport et al. (2012), that civil society organizations have played in the establishment of arms control conventions, more specifically the Mine Ban Treaty, also called Ottawa Convention, and the Cluster Munition Convention.

Informationsoperationer utgör idag en allt viktigare del i svenska internationella uppdrag. Inom informationsoperationer sorterar funktionerna Psykologiska operationer (psyops) och Civil-Militär samverkan (CIMIC). Enligt grundsynen för informationsoperationer skall CIMIC utgöra en stödfunktion åt psyops under internationella insatser. Dock är inte samarbetet mellan parterna närmare preciserat och beskrivet i Försvarsmaktens dokumentation. Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva och analysera hur funktionen psyops inom Försvarsmakten kan stöttas av stödfunktionen CIMIC vid en internationell insats.För att uppnå syftets ambition använder uppsatsen sig av en deskriptiv metod i syfte att empiriskt beskriva funktionernas karaktärer och egenskaper.

The increasing significance of social economy as a concept is linked to general global processes such as the crisis of the welfare state, neoliberal globalization, anti-bureaucracy tendencies and decentralization, but also to a growing political interest in human rights and social development. In Sweden the idea of the social economy generates wide support within civil society as well as within the government and across party political boundaries. Furthermore, what is problematic in this context is the fact that the discussions on the subject tend to be relatively uncritical and often it seems as if though the expansion itself is the main objective. The emphasis on cooperation and the third sector in terms of welfare production implies a set of risks in relation to state responsibility, democracy and the autonomy of civil society. This paper aims to explore those risks and how they can be dealt with within the Swedish context..

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy ReportThis paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them.

The bulk of the research within the field of media and communication is concentrated at theforefront of development, studies focus on modern companies and modern communication.However, many people work in the industry, where the conditions for communication are partly different. The aim of this study is to explore the possibilities for internal communication that the employees have at the base industrial company of Billerud Gruvön, Sweden. How important do they feel that communication is? Can the internal communication within Gruvön be described as modern, where dialogue between the staff is possible, or as orders from the top down to the bottom of the hierarchal structure?These are our research questions:Which channels are used for communication within Gruvön, and how are they used?How important do the employees deem the internal communication to be?Can the communication within a hierarchal industrial company such as Gruvön be described as modern, where dialogue is at the center, or does the communication consist basically on orders from the top down to the bottom of the chain?Our research is based on the following theories: Communication, Organizational communication, Internal communication and Organizational culture. We have looked to earlier research such as the doctorates of Simonsson (2002) and Johansson (2003) to further our understanding.The methods used are interviews with operators, middle management and the informationofficer at Gruvön.

This essay tries to explain how Swedish donor organisations are working with democracy in foreign aid. Three case studies of Sida, LO-TCO Biståndsnämnd and Rädda Barnen aims to give an overview of Swedish donor organisations, their work with democracy aid, evaluation and the problems with foreign aid. With Carothers theory of democracy aiding I analyse the success of Swedish democracy promotion, how civil society contributes to democratizaion and how democracy is measured.I find that Swedish democracy aid overall is successful due to a wider perspective of the term democracy. When democracy involves human rights it gives the donor a possibility to work with democracy promotion in a more extensive area and especially in the civil society. The essay stresses the importance of being subjective when evaluating and that one have to focus on the definition of democracy in each specific case.

The aim of this study is to investigate differences that exist in Estonia and Russia with regard to civil society, democracy and corruption and try to find out what can be possible causes to the vast differences in these two countries. Many political scientists claim that civil society plays a key role in democratic transitions. This paper takes its point of departure in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed and Estonia and Russia became independent. Since then Estonia has had a flourishing economy which attract many foreign investments, with Sweden as the greatest investor. The country has also managed well to adjust quickly from totalitarianism to democracy.

How stakeholders can influence EU in global environmental politics and what consequences and risks this brings are heavily debated. Some scholars argue that civil society are being disenfranchised from the global political arena while others seem to find them having influence in areas where they normally shouldn´t have any influence. In this this paper I will compare the Europan Union policy on GMOs with the process in producing the Water Framework Directive using an analytical framework to study the level of stakeholder influence. Following the framework I will use two types of data namely NGO participation and Goal attainment. The data once summarized will be analyzed by using the methods of process-tracing and counterfactual analysis.My conclusions regarding both cases are that stakeholders, most notably, were able to influence policymaking in EU by using the internal revisions and by networking in smaller partnerships.

This study centres on the question of how interfaith dialogue can function as a meeting place for young people from different social and cultural backgrounds. The study is based on qualitative interviews with five young participants in an interfaith project taking place in Sweden in 2013 and 2014. For reading the material through a lens of late modern religiosity, Heelas and Woodheads thesis of a spiritual revolution was used. To be able to conclude whether the religiousness of the participants functions as a social resource, Hammack and Cohlers term narrative engagement is used. Lastly Knitters models of theologies of religions was used in the analysis of how the participants reads and understands their own and the others faiths.The study shows that the participants meet in the common aim of defining a religious identity in a late modern and pluralistic society.

In autumn 2010, the Division of Civil Engineering at the Swedish building contractorPEAB made a campaign to increase the number of reported incidents. Informationwas sent to the branch manager who was responsible to enlighten the employees onthe establishment. The goal of PEAB Division of Civil Engineering is to have at least 10reported incidents per accident that generate more than 8 hours absence. Therefore,it is important that the employees understand how the report system for incidentsworks. The number of reported incidents differs between regions.

Beslutsfattning om militära våldsmedel varierar med en nations civil-militära mönster. Genom att teoretiskt använda maktbegreppet för att beskriva vilka normativa styrprinciper som formar den civil-militära relationen kan den också beskrivas. Teorin appliceras på Falklandskonflikten och Ubåtsincidenterna i Sverige under tidigt 80-tal. Effekterna som undersöks är tid och uppfattning om det strategiska målet som operationen syftar till.  Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att undersöka hur olika typer av relationer mellan civila makthavare och den militära organisationen påverkar utformningen av beslut om militärt våld.

Citizen participation is fundamental in place analysis, where the aim is to define the sites specific character and identity. The local citizens know the village better than anyone else since they lead their daily life in the environment. I have in cooperation with Sala municipality suggested guidelines on how to involve the local people in dialogue during place analysis. The target was to involve and enthuse as many people as possible with relatively small resources in time and money. The suggested methodology was tried out in a place analysis of Västerfärnebo, a community with about 3 000 inhabitants of which 500 live in the main village.

Svalstedt, Tobias (2008): Från militär till civil. Omställningen för tolv yrkesofficerare efter nedläggningen av Dalregementet [From officer to civilian. The adaptation for twelve officers after the discontinuation of Dalregementet]D-uppsats 10 poäng, fördjupningskurs i kulturgeografiHandledare: Gunnel ForsbergSpråk: SvenskaKORTFATTAD SAMMANFATTNINGUndersökningen handlar om yrkesofficerare som lämnat Försvarsmakten i samband med nedläggningen av Dalregementet i Falun. Syftet är att ta reda på hur officerarna lyckats anpassa sig till en civil arbetsmarknad och vilken betydelse synen på officersyrket som manligt ideal haft för omställningen, vilken betydelse militär grad och ålder haft samt vilken betydelse den nya inriktningen som Försvarsmakten tog på 80-talet, NBO, haft. Metoden som använts är kvalitativa samtalsintervjuer med sammanlagt tolv officerare.