The idea that I put forward in this thesis concerns the democratic system and the threat from discoursive impact on its core values. I focus my normative analysis on three of these democratic values: transparency, accountability and influence ? and what democratic problems the discoursive impact causes in conflict with them. I have used a critical discourse theory to define discourse and discoursive impact, by focusing on the process of discourse, rather than its nature. I deal with the political structure where I claim that the essential relation between citizen and politician is disrupted, due to lack of information and the imminent problems of the existing network society.

This thesis uses statistical methods to investigate if political appointees working for the Swedish government are good representatives for the members of the ruling party. This is a relevant question since the number of political appointees and the political fields in which they are employed have increased. Some say that this is a sign of presidentialism, which in this context means that the prime minister and his cabinet are becoming more independent from parliament and supporting party. The research is done by comparing the political appointees with an select elite of party members regards to socioeconomic background, which interest that are promoted in society and ideology. The consequences of differences on these characteristics between political appointees and the party elite could be that some interest in society are wrongly overrepresented while others are wrongly underrepresented by the unelected political appointees.

In this paper, I am using a critical discourse analysis a la Fairclough to examin how various actors talk about the group of unemployed youths in the 52 articles from Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. What?s written in media often portrays different ideas that individuals use in social practice. My theoretical points are social constructivism, risk-, expert-, and media society. Four themes crystallized in the analysis; young and unemployed, education, jobbgaratin and youth and labor market.

My project is about attitudes towards disabled people, about our fear for those who are different, about acceptance, ideals and normality.My inspiration has been prosthesis, and mostly people that are born without limbs. Through my research I have come across a lot of questions. Such as, why is a prosthesis so important and for whom? Why is it so important to be normal? What is normal and for who? People that are born different se upon themselves as normal, until they realize that others don?t. Many of them want to learn how to deal with life without prosthesis. And therefore they reject these. Sometimes the prosthesis is aids that are highly necessary.

AbstractThe aim of the thesis was to examine some older people's experiences of everyday life and how it is to grow old in Namibia today. Because everyday life is a broad concept, we chose to focus on some specific parts of everyday life. These are chores, family, work/education, elderly past and present and the government/society. Furthermore we chose to look at the similarities and differences between the experiences on the basis of gender, race/ethnic groups and class.We chose to use a qualitative research method and to be inspired by life stories. We used a semi-structured interview guide and interviewed six people between 70 and 89 years.

This study aims to examine how performance management is compatible with the operations at Sida, Sweden?s International Development Cooperation Agency, by performing interviews with representatives from Sida. The public sector is facing increased demands on accounting, which has emerged as an institutionalized social norm in society. The nature of Sida?s operations, however, proves to be highly complex, rendering results based management difficult to implement.

Eastern Europeans in Gotland is an essay with the purpose to find out how persons born in Eastern Europeans countries have adapted and integrated on Gotland. European community and notions about other groups of immigrants on Gotland have been relevant questions besides. The results of the essay show that the conditions for adaptation and integration are very different between the periods of time and for the individuals, depending on how they arrived to Sweden. The migrant workers quickly adapted to the labour market and had good premises to be in a position of financial independence. The demands of skills were low in the 60?s, but as a result of this, many of them didn?t learn the Swedish language very well and during the crisis in the 90?s they were no longer that attractive on the labour market.

The Swedish mental hospitals existed for about one hundred years, the period around 1880-1980. The research is intended to be from a local setting perspective to study the local approach used to meet requirements from Furunäsets mental hospital principals 1960 - 1972, the effect this had on the care and treatment of mentally ill patients and how Swedish society's changing approach to mental health influenced the process. The results of the research showed that Furunäset searched for ways to meet the principals' requirements which often went against the patients? personal best. Furunäsets mental hospital strove to fulfill its institutional goals in them selves rather than giving patients the care and treatment they needed.

Today the internet has become a meeting place for people seeking advice and experience from other individuals. Internet also offers opportunities to send out information to large groups of people, which are at a geographical distance. A large increase of websites for parents has been seen in the recent years. On the largest Swedish website for parents, Familjeliv.se, approx. 40 000 posts are posted daily in the discussion forum.

The purpose of this study is to find out why the EU has not yet implemented the EuropeanCivil Peace Corps (ECPC), which the EU Parliament took a resolution about in 1999. Themore specific questions posed are whether the concept of ECPC has been redefined, whetherthe issue of ECPC has been prevented from coming up for discussion and decision-making,and what this has meant for the non-implementation. Steven Lukes' theory about the threedimensions of power is used in combination with a discourse analysis method. The materialused is documents from the EU Parliament's decisions and debate about ECPC, and ECPCfeasibility studies. In the analysis I find one "law and order"-discourse and one "peaceknowledge"-discourse.

Sweden  has  been  characterized  as  one  of  the world?s most  secular  countries, even though  it is  becoming  increasingly more multicultural.  This,  combined  with  the fact that pupils do  not  feel  they  have  enough  time  in  school  for  Religious  Education and that the requirements are increasing made me interested in how they talk about religion in upper secondary school. The aim of this study is to see if there are any differences between how pupils in vocational programs and academic programs are talking about religion and Religious Education. The main questions that were raised revolved around 1)  how  pupils  talk  about  what  religion  is,  2)  how  they  talk  about  religion  in  the Swedish  society  and  3) how  they  talk  about  Religious  Education  in  upper  secondary school. The questions were also about what similarities and differences I could find in the way they talked about these subjects.

In the expansion rate of the national as well as the international market, the importance of trademark has been given a central matter. The definition of what can be considered a trademark has been widened. Today?s trademark law defines a trademark as something that can be graphically reproduced. Trademarks can there for contain names, words, numbers, letters or the shape of the goods itself or the packaging.

The essay concerns "the knowledge society", IT and the possibilities of school being changedto meet the future. The purpose was to reflect the ideas of researchers and authorities concerningwork and education in "the knowledge society" and to illuminate/shed light on theimportance of information technology in this connection, to map organizational and pedagogicalshortcomings in the current school system and the changes that can be needed, and to investigatehow these changes can affect teachers, pupils and librarians.The investigation, which was a text analysis of normative and futurist sources, was especiallydirected towards how modem information technology can influence education/teaching.The differences between researchers and authorities were most obvious in the view of theimportance of knowledge of facts and central control mechanisms for standards or grading.For the authorities, who were devoid of a thought out/carefully prepared and consequent viewof knowledge and by that also of pedagogics, the information technique was the foremostcause of a change in pedagogy. The researchers also perceived the possibilities of IT, butemphasized the importance of pedagogical innovations irrespective of the technology.

Drink! The Marketing History of The Coca-Cola Company: A Modernization Perspective examines the development of The Coca-Cola Company?s marketing history, from the founding of the company in 1886 until today. The Coca-Cola Company has been superior on the market for over a century. It has also developed along with the urbanisation of its society, which is interesting in a modernization perspective. The essay investigates the marketing strategies of the company, with focus on three themes: gender, sponsorship and interactive culture phenomenon.

The aim of this study has been to make clear the conception of ?The Garden City?, and also to investigate why and how the garden city has come to be a more frequent and attractive form of settlement in our Swedish community. The essay is supported by a literature study about the garden city from its beginning (1890?s) to present time. To make a distinct explanation of the garden cities progress over time, I have studied the idea behind two garden cities of today, Tullinge and Vistabergs garden city.