I have studied how network in a broad sense can affect decision-making. The primary purpose is to see if the political initiative somewhere disappears when it comes to understand the relations between power, actors and politics. The study discuss in a theoretical area that concerns the reliability in neoinstitutionalism to use as an analytical instrument. Some criticism is given to the theoretical standpoint in the sense that there is no power perspective included in the theory. I include a discussion about a concept of power, which I include to the theory.

This bachelor thesis is studying the INTERREG cooperation between Denmark and Germany, and if there has been a change to the organization and the individual conditions due to the Danish regional reform in 2007. The research method used is semi-structured interviews and the participants are a mixture of politicians and civil servants. The study is based on two themes, change in work routines and cooperation, and change in visions and targets.The participants have experienced change, both positive and negative, in work routines and cooperation and to a lesser extent in visions and targets. Preparation is the key to success and makes the transition much easier, which has been the case for Denmark. Other mentioned aspects are more work due to more complicated applications, and that the politicians so far lack a regional perspective and tend to stick to the local.

This report is a case study of ?citizen forums? in the municipality of Uppsala. These forums are arranged to make people participate more in local politics. The aim of this study is to find out if the opinions and the wishes coming from the citizens are later involved in the planning process etc made by the authorities. The aim is also to explain why or why not the opinions from the citizens are of any importance.My empirical data come from interviews that I have made with seven different respondents, both politicians and civil servants.

Every human being has the right to the highest attainable standard of health. This is regulated by the UN in the Declaration of Human Rights. However, Swedish legislation discriminate the group of irregular immigrants, regarding the right to health care. Therefore, Paul Hunt, the UN's special rapporteur on the right to health, draws serious critique on Sweden which has caused extensive debate regarding the matter, both in the civil and political sphere of society.Thus, the aim of this essay is through an analysis of the political debate; make visible the norms of citizenship which are dominating the argumentation of the seven parties represented in the Swedish Parliament. An analytical framework, consisting of three dimensions, is therefore used in order to interpret the material which is relevant for the debate.The conclusion is that Moderaterna and Centerpartiet mainly base their arguments on communitarian values, while Kristdemokraterna and Folkpartiet rather show influences of liberal ideas.

In our world, more than two billion people are living under insecure food conditions and more than eight hundred million people are estimated to be starving. The majority of these people live in developing counties which are poor and often subject of civil war. The past fifty years the main subject of security analysis has been the sovereign and rational state and the threats have been viewed in terms of military and weapons of mass destruction. This has come to change over the last decades and security as a concept has broadened, which better represents the reality of today. Within this broader conceptualization of security the main referent of security is the individual, rather than the state, and threats are not only analyzed from a military point of view, but also seen as threats against human rights and freedoms.

Liberia har på senare tid präglats av instabilitet och misslyckat fredsbyggande. Vår ambition är att ge en välgrundad förståelse för inbördeskriget 1989-1996, och att på ett resonerande sätt besvara frågan varför man inte lyckades etablera varaktig fred efter krigsslutet. Uppsatsen är en teorikonsumerande fallstudie av Liberia med ett tvådelat syfte. Vårt fall analyseras utifrån teorier om krigsorsaker och fredsbyggande och empirin utgörs av tidigare forskning på området. De slutsatser vi nått är att kriget kan förstås som ett resultat av statens urholkade makt och de missförhållanden detta skapade.

The aim of this paper is to see how the local authorities in Norrköping create a way to look at homelessness. This aim is examined with the help of the central questions: How does the municipality describe homelessness as a phenomenon? What causes to homelessness can be seen in the texts? How do they describe homeless people? And What kind of actions are used or proposed? The analysis has been done with the tools and thoughts of the critical discourse analysis and made on text documents written by politics and employees of the city of Norrköping. The theories which have been used are those of postmodernism, welfare, homelessness, civil society and relative poverty. The analysis shows that the way the municipality of Norrköping looks at homelessness correspond with the way homelessness is presented in current Swedish research.

The municipality of Falkenberg is a result of a unification of several smaller municipalities in 1971, each one with a small library. This left Falkenberg with an unusual large amount of smaller branch libraries. The object of this thesis is to describe and try to understand the political conflicts that have erupted during the period 1971-1994. Through a case study containing press clippings from the local newspaper, different reports, political meeting protocols, a historical background of the library and a study of library specific norms and regulations I can create an image of the heated debate. The participants in this debate can be divided into politicians and civil servants and the conflict circles round the fact that from an economical perspective, there is not enough budget to keep all the small, local libraries.

With the end of the Cold War the number of conflicts where the United Nations have intervened has increased dramatically. This has entailed a need for a burden-sharing between the UN and regional organizations regarding management of conflicts. The aim of this study is to make a comparative analysis of the effectiveness and the efficiency in the efforts undertaken by ECOWAS and the UN during the civil war in Sierra Leone, through using theories on conflict resolution and the advantages of regional organizations in conflict resolution.My conclusion is that both ECOWAS and the UN were quite successful in managing the conflict and had an impact on the resolution of the war, although both peace operations suffered from internal problems. ECOWAS was effective in managing the conflict and in its mediating efforts as an insider from the region. The UN was more efficient in managing to attain their goals.

The purpose of this study was to examine the incentives behind Sweden?s decision to engagein the Afghanistan conflict.The method used to fulfil the purpose of the study is content analysis. The material that hasbeen used in the study is various books and articles concerning Sweden in Afghanistan,Swedish foreign policy and perspectives in political science.The study is multi-theoretical and thus the analysis explains the incentives from a liberal, arealist and a constructivist point of view.The conclusion of the study is that identity has a great part in explaining the incentives forSweden to engage in Afghanistan, especially because of the transformation in strategy andforeign policy that has taken place since the end of the cold war. Other factors, such as peacebuilding and national interests also are incentives supported by the material used in the study.Yet, perhaps they are first and foremost connected by the constructivist idea of identity..

This study examines the link between the individual and social network, what social forces and social mechanisms involved in the interaction between individuals and groups and how we can explain and consider this relationship with the aim of understanding this connection. Through qualitative interviews, based on interviews of six active members in the organization Young KRIS (Young Criminal?s Return in the Society) examines the active social processes that the young members undergo, and motivates those who have been outside the expected conformed and regular society, to be included in the regular community and how this can be explained. The study shows that the organization through high availability, openness, knowledge of the needs of young people, good treatment, range of meaningful activities, has created a great venue for the young to develop and thus regain their place in the society..

The swedish law of contract is fundamental within several civil law areas, among others labour law. The labour law contains more explicit legislation specificly adapted to the relation between employers and employees. Sometimes the labour law needs to rely on more general regulations, such as the law of contract. When the situation contains a specific contract relation dilemma it is logical to use the law of contract, when for example the law of employee protection does not reach an acceptabel solution.Transfer of undertaking is a situation were the employee protection is disregarded. The Euro directive 2001/23/EG prescribes, by its implemented rules in the law of employee protection, that rights and duties, such as employement agreements, passes on to the earner of the business.

This essay is about Swedish government cultural policy.The premise is that cultural policy is a form of welfarepolicy. The welfare state has changed and this affects theconditions for the cultural policy. Welfare is funded andorganized in different parts of society, in three spheres thatcan be said to represent society as a whole. These spheresare the public sphere, the market and the civil society. Theaim is to analyze how the national cultural policy appearedin the 1970s, compared to how it appears today.

Purpose/Aim: The purpose is to describe, analyze and compare the two communication campaigns Världens Chans and Utrota Fattigdomen Nu, and discuss how and to what extent communication campaigns in Sweden can be used to reduce global poverty. The theoretical framework is mainly based on communications strategies and other relevant aspects of the planning process of campaigns.Material/Method: Within the qualitative case study as an overall method, the main material to the two cases is obtained through five qualitative interviews with the premier representatives of the campaigns.Main results: Världens Chans can be seen as an information campaign by the government which purpose is to contribute to the fulfilment of the millennium goals by drawing the attention of the public to their existence. Utrota Fattigdomen Nu, on the other hand, is an influence campaign by the civil society which purpose is to exterminate poverty by putting a pressure on power holders and to change the attitudes and the behaviours among the public. Both campaigns are based on a network with lots of different actors, functioning as opinion makers. Furthermore, communication campaigns are important tools in the fight against poverty..

Berlinmurens fall 1989 och Sovjetunionens sönderfall har lett till en mer föränderlig omvärld. Invasionshotet mot Sverige har minskat, men istället har de framtida hotbilderna blivit mer osäkra och svårförutsägbara. Förmågan att efter omvärldens skiftningar kunna anpassa och förändra volymen och kunskapen i totalförsvaret har under 1990-talet blivit ett begrepp i totalförsvarsplaneringen.Denna uppsats syftar till att beskriva den civila planeringsprocess som har genomförts och som fortfarande genomförs i syfte att anpassningsplanera det civila försvaret. Ett delsyfte har varit att studera om myndigheter och kommuner når ut med planeringen till konsumenterna dvs. allmänheten.Studien har genomförts som en fallstudie på den civila funktionen befolkningsskydd och räddningstjänst.