UN is a non-governmental organization which should promote gender equality within the organization. It is an organization which is based on human rights and claims that in order to solve the problem of poverty, famine and development we need to promote women?s status. In Sweden there is a strong tradition of gender balanced representation at the governmental level and this perspective raise the question if there is a spill-over effect to the civil society as in the case of a non-governmental organization. This makes it interesting to look at if a non-governmental organization which is not under state control work for gender equality within their own organization.

Civil olydnad är en kontroversiell strategi för politisk påverkan. Men vilket inflytande haraktionerna? I studien jämförs sex fall i Sverige där miljöorganisationen Greenpeace har använt sig av civil olydnad för att förmå länsstyrelsen att bilda reservat av avverkningshotade skogar. I de tre fallen Raneboskogen i Västra Götaland, Snöberget i Norrbotten och Njakafjäll i Västerbotten har länsstyrelsen avbrutit avverkningarna i nära samband med Greenpeace aktioner och bildat reservat. I de tre fallen Bråtaskogen i Västra Götaland, Pakkojåkkå i Norrbotten och Arvliden i Västerbotten har däremot avverkningarna slutförts efter att aktivisterna har gripits.I studien genomförs en motivanalys och en maktanalys för att klarlägga om och hur länsstyrelsens beslut att bilda eller inte bilda reservat har påverkats av Greenpeace aktioner.

The two swedish unions, Akademikerförbundet SSR and Kommunal, have a majority of female participations who mainly work in the public services. The difference between the unions is that one of them only represents members with academic educations and the other has members with lower educations. The aim of this study was to compare the two unions according to the terms exit, voice and loyalty, but also participation and influence. There were 142 participants in this study and 8 participants were interviewed in a pre-study. The result of the study shows that voice is a strong predictor to wellbeing in work life.

The aim of this master thesis is to find out if young people and librarians think that reference groups can support public libraries to meet the needs of young people, and if the reference groups, which the librarians describe, differentiates from the young peoples requirements. I have made a qualitative study with a questionnaire to six librarians who have experience from reference groups and ten interviews with teenagers. The result showed that young people have many interests and needs which can be met from the library. The teenagers were positive to the library and many of them showed interest in having more influence on the library. Many would like to join a reference group, but on the condition that they would be offered real influence.

Syfte ? Att skapa en ny produkt inom kategorin mingelbord, som erbjuder fler användningsområden för att bli mer anpassad för privatpersoner och i hemmamiljö. Att genom en innovativ konstruktion och en kombination av moduliserade- och hantverksdelar skapa en unik produkt på marknaden.Metod ? Grundmetoden för det här arbetet är den första fasen i en produkts liv: produktutvecklingsprocessen; identifiera behovet, planera designprocessen, ta fram kundkraven, utveckla konceptet och till sist utveckla produkten.Resultat ? Designkoncept på ett mingelbord har tagits fram och redovisas i bilder. Dessa bilder är resultatet av en uppmodellering i datorn med hjälp av 3D-progam.

Sports associations play a very important role in the Swedish civil society, and since the 1st of July 1987 they have been exempted from the duty to pay VAT. By introducing an sufficiently closely related. When the conflict of law exists, the directive will be accorded priority, which leads to the Swedish Sports Federation must examine and considerexemption for sports associations the income tax field and VAT field correlate and the legislative change resulted in more favorable pre-close solutions for all of Sweden's non- profit organizations.  In June 2008 the European Commission launched a process concerning Swedish infringement against EU-law, and with it the Swedish civil society, where all Swedish sports associations are included, is threatened. The European Commission wants to, among other things, force sports associations into the VAT system for the purpose of the VAT Directive to be achieved.

The case study investigates study association representatives? perspectives on the activities of the popular education within the social sector in Örebro and why they are organized. It further investigates the cooperation and dialogue between the study associations and the municipality of Örebro regarding this activity. The study is based on critical realism. A questionnaire survey was conducted among all ten study associations in Örebro, combined with qualitative interviews with representatives from six of the active associations.

This study analyzes Hungary's democratic backsliding under Viktor Orb?ns term of office between 2010 and 2025. The research questions addressed in this study are ?Which central institutional reforms can be identified as significant for Hungary?s democratic backsliding under Viktor Orb?n?s rule from 2010 to 2025?? and ?In what ways have these reforms contributed to a process of democratic backsliding?? The study is based on a qualitative case method. To be able to conduct this study, secondary sources such as academic literature and reports from international organizations have been analyzed in detail.

Not enough attention has been paid to the correlation between the failure of peacekeeping operations and the actual source of civil wars. This text is an attempt to fill that gap. Hence the question: under which conditions is it possible for peacekeeping operations to replace the responsibility of the state concerning the security aspects of the social contract? The outset of the text, using the theories of Robert Nozick, is a theoretical approach towards the founding of states, described as the merging of entities. The theory serves a purpose since it, in combination with identity, illustrates in what manner the glue of society occurs and the rallying around other kind of loyalties like clans and ethnicities.

This thesis is dedicated to analysing the relationship between Islam and democracy and the role played by Civil Society in a process towards democracy. This theme is further elaborated through a comprehensive study of three modern Muslim intellectuals: Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland), and their thoughts about and views on Islam and democracy. Islam has often been portrayed in a stereotype manner where all forms of change are seen as impossible. The aim of this study is to go beyond this vision and instead focus one the role of Islam in processes of development and new forms of interpretation concerning democracy.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the relationship between Islam and democracy.

AbstractThe main purpose of this essay is to examine if media-sport influence pupils in their physical education and if the teachers understands it. At the same time the aim has also been to investigate how the teachers can get along with the media influence in their teaching. We have also investigated what teachers in physical education think about the curriculum and if there is space for a teaching method that respect the pupils will.The essay is an empirical qualitative study built on open-ended interviews with 3 respondents from two schools in the county of Värmland, Sweden. The range of qualified teacher is restricted at this school. We asked 5 teachers to join, but only 3 were accepting to join our study.

This comparative case study, which is based on a most similar system design,investigates why the Chávez government has attained a lower degree of democracy than the Kirchner and the Lula governments. In order to develop asupplementary theory about why governments in general achieve various degrees of democracy I compare these governments and examine what policies that differ them and why. My results show that these governments? policies differ concerning the rule of law, militarization, and negotiations with economic groups and anti-regime parts of civil society. I have found numerous answers to why some of these governments (and governments in general) have democratic policies within these four areas and why some do not.

The aim of this study is to investigate wether the participatory democracy is a threat or a complement to the representative democracy. To achieve my purpose I will focus on two different lokal councils, the civil council in Hovsjö and the youth council in Västra Skogås, which have been objects of the urban policy in 1998. The theoretical framework on which this study is based consists of the participation democratic theory, representative democratic theory and implementation theory. By problemizing these theoretical frameworks in comparison with eachother I will mapp how these two lokal councils were implemented. The research question is: In what way was the civil council and the youth council a complement or threat to the representative democracy? In which way was it difficult to implement them?The method used for this purpose is a qualitative comparative case study.

The purpose of this thesis is to give an understanding of how grocery stores relate to local foods. Through a case study representatives for two groceries in Norrbotten have been interviewed regarding why they supply local foods, how they try to influence customers to buy this, and how they decide upon the assortment of local foods. The result shows that groceries supply local foods in order to supply a wide range of products and to mediate social responsibility, in order to create customer loyalty. Concerning how the groceries try to influence customers to buy local foods the result cannot give any clear-cut view. Instead it shows that a grocery that actively works to influence customers to buy local foods markets them in specific ways, while the opposite applies to a grocery that does not actively work for this.

The purpose of this thesis is to determine whether the student councils at two schools really have the power to influence, or if it is a matter of mock democracy. I wanted to determine how the student councils work in reality. I conducted my investigation through personal and qualitative interviews with the board of the student council, a social studies teacher and the principle/school management at both schools. After the interviews I compared an analysed my findings. The results show that the two schools work very differently when it comes to studentdemocracy, and even have very different levels of ambition when it comes to the degree of influence that the student council should have at their respective schools.