Based on an analytical overview of post-Communist civil society development in Russia, the present thesis attempts a critical discussion of general civil society theory from the perspective of its relevance for the case study in question. The text consists of three closely interconnected, mutually reinforcing parts. In the first part, major issues of current civil society research are being thematically presented and discussed. The second part concerns itself with the case study as such. It is divided into two parts, one dealing with the relations between state and civil society in Russia, the other with civil society and the individual.

A tragic event in 2012 sparked a debate about the need for a law of civil courage when it became clearthat passivity in situations where people ?s lives are put in danger is not punishable. In this essay based on qualitative interviews with jurists and students of law the issue of civil courage is analyzed with the help of sociological theory. My objective has been to try and find out if a law of civil courage can be motivated with the argument that it would strengthen the public moral. My conclusion is that a law of moral courage is not a suitable way of making people more willing to help others or to strengthen the civil courage or the public moral.

This Bachelor Thesis looks at the cooperation between the Swedish civil society and theEuropean Union (EU), and it aims at evaluating Swedish civil society organizations' influencewithin the EU's development work on policy level. It focuses primarily on eight civil societyorganizations, and it is based on empirical material collected in Stockholm and Gothenburg,Sweden. The material has been analyzed using three theoretical frameworks. The firstdetermines whether the structure of the EU allows bottom-up influence, the second looks atthe communication between the EU and civil society organizations, and the third assesseswhether the civil society has the ability to influence the political agenda within the EU?sdevelopment work.Conclusions of the thesis include determining the complex structure of the EU as a mainobstacle to influencing the EU's development work.

Tanzania is today one of the greatest aid recipients in the world, but still - after over 45 years of huge amounts of aid - one of the poorest and least developed countries. How can that be? Civil society is said to benefit the democratization process, but has not succeed in Tanzania. Has the extensive aid had any impact? Our purpose is to investigate this set of problems.We are using theories concerning civil society and aid in general, and the theoretical framework developed by Hadenius and Uggla ?Making Civil Society Work, Promoting Democratic Development: What Can States and Donors Do??, in particular.

Civil-military relations ? conditions for cooperationAbstract: Civil-military cooperation is a branch of current interest, both in studies and research. The importance has also increased after the government´s demands in a more developed and efficient coordination of national contribution to international peace support operations. Several studies show that there is a lack of ability to cooperate between different levels of command and other actors. The Swedish tradition of state administration is strong and the responsibility to cooperate lies within the hands of the different authorities.

Essay in political science, D-level by Lisa Kringsberg, spring semester 2008.Tutor: Michele Micheletti.?Civil Society in Singapore? can it make democratization possible?The third wave of democratization and the end of the cold war has together increased the interest of the civil society as an impact on democratization. Singapore is a country which is higly-developt in both the socie-economic and economic field. Dispate this Singapore has not yet achieved to become a democratic state. The purpose of this essay is to study how the civil society can affect democracy in a country.

Numerous studies have showed that Swedish municipalities are responsible for several of the activities that concern children and their rights, e.g. school and health care. Furthermore, the Convention of the Rights of the Child is an international agreement that Sweden has signed and ratified which also implies the obligations that Swedish municipalities have. The purpose of this study is to investigate and compare, from a social justice perspective, how children?s rights are being emphasized and how children?s opinions are being taken into consideration at the municipality level in Sweden.

Totalförsvarstes forskningsinstitut, FOI, och Riksrevisionen har i flera rapporter beskrivit Försvarsmaktens roll i det svenska krishanteringssystemet som otydlig. Uppsatsen syfte är att undersöka vilka dokument som styr Försvarsmakten då CBRN-händelser inträffar i det svenska samhället samt hur dessa dokument påverkar den civil-militära samverkan. Dokumenten har analyserats utifrån en teori om organisationers gränser och anknutits till en verklig CBRN-händelse (branden i Halmstads hamn hösten 2012). Genom analysen har slutsats dragits att teorin om organisationers gränser kan användas för analys av civil-militär samverkan vid krishantering i allmänhet. Specifika händelser som inkluderar CBRN bör ses som del av en helhet och inte som ett enskilt fall.

AbstractThe struggle for land has been an issue ever since Brazil was colonized by the Portuguese Crown. The deep social inequalities that the country faces were raised then. More than 45% of the agricultural land is controlled by only 1% of the landowners. There have been many movements since then, who has fought for agrarian reforms.MST, the largest social movement in Brazil, was born in the 1980s. They managed to mobilize the peasants and the poor people.

The EU- citizenship was established in the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. This citizenship involves rights to free movement, election rights to the European Parliament, diplomatic protection and the right to petition to the Ombudsman. In my analysis I discuss the implications of the EU- citizenship for the individual. The development and legal status of the union citizenship is examined in order to give a general understanding of the implications. In addition, I conduct a case study concerning the EU- citizenship's impact on workers rights.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union a lot of hope has been put on civil society to help develop Russia into a more democratic society. This study explores the constructive elements in the relationship between civil society and the state in Russia, and how this enables the work toward political development. By using Julie Fishers theory about political development and organisational autonomy I discuss the varying and often complex ways in which civil society and the state interacts. These are often not mentioned in the liberal tradition, which believes that civil society's most important democratic function is to act as a watchdog for the state.There is very limited political space for NGO's in authoritative Russia. The existing oppositional NGO's are important for the political development, but they are few and their impacts on society are limited.

The three post-communist states - Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine ? have gone different ways in terms of freedom and democracy since the breakdown of the Soviet Union 1991. During these years, the state and the civil society have been fundamental actors in the struggle against, and even for, authoritarianism.A strong state with great capacity in Belarus has undermined the chances for the civil society to fulfil its task as a watchdog of the state and link between the citizens and the government.Failed authoritarianism in Moldova has led to a situation where both the state and the civil society are weak. The major problem is lack of organization and cohesion; both the state and the civil society have often been divided by ethnical differences and are therefore not strong enough to promote democracy.In Ukraine, the dominance of a strong state ended in 2004 when the Orange Revolution took place, sometimes called a ?peak of democracy? where popular mobilization and protests succeeded in it's opposition against the state.

The 1900s saw two incidents of states using their military in civil disorder situations, which resulted in the killing of unarmed citizens. May 14, 1931 in Ådalen, marks a significant part of Swedish history and its view of the use of military force.  On that day, a peaceful protest march escalated, which resulted in live firing by the military stationed there to uphold law and order. This resulted in the deaths of five civilians and the prohibition of the use of military force in incidents of civil disorder. In 1972 in Northern Ireland a similar event took place on January 30, which is commonly known as Bloody Sunday. The Troubles were raging and resulted in protests for Civil rights by nationalists.

The main argument of the thesis is that multinational companies (MNCs) can promote democracy through corporate social responsibility (CSR). MNCs hold some prerequisites giving them the means to create positive changes. But they lack one important prerequisite: knowledge about local conditions. Therefore the best CSR result is reached through partnerships with local NGOs.H&M's CSR-work in Bangladesh, including a partnership with the Bangladeshi women's rights organisation Karmojibi Nari, serves as an illustrating case. It is argued that the CSR-work promotes democracy through strengthening the civil society, through indirectly implementing national laws concerning labour legislation and human rights and through raising awareness about rights and legislation among the workers.The CSR process changes the terms for both NGOs and MNCs.

The purpose of this essay is to illustrate the preparation of total and civil defense education in schools in the 1970s to gain insight into how the school looked and pondered the complicated world that existed outside the school's doors. By using the concepts of welfare state, welfare and civil defense culture, I have studied relevant materials to get answers to questions treating the total and civil education in schools after Lgr69, the way the state sees the subject and if it is possible to detect a civil defense culture in schools and if so, how it will be expressed.     The results show that the state emphasized education as incredibly important because knowledge of how to act in a crisis or war could be extremely crucial for the individuals and their survival. The education was so important that it got a role as a main factor in Lgr69. But even if the education was important the teachers had huge problems with the schedule and many teachers couldn´t educate all facts because they didn´t have enough time.