The organisation of the municipalities is based on the principle of representation. It has previously been impossible to give the citizens more influence through direct democracy, but the information technology gives new possibilities and the choice of democracy model might no longer be obvious. Representation can be interpreted in many ways and there is a need for a more distinct definition of the rule that the municipalities shall be governed according to the principle of representation. It should also be further investigated how the new technology can be used to increase the use of direct democracy. The municipalities ought to work to supplement the representation with direct democracy in the form of active discourse with the citizens.

AbstractUniversity of Växjö, School of Social SciencesCourse: POC 536, Political Science 41-60Title: The U.S. military intervention in Iraq ? A study of how the intervention corresponds with the UN CharterAuthors: Andreas Malmgren & Johan SchneiderSupervisor: Lennart BergfeldtDate: 2006-09-26The aim of this essay is through a qualitative literature study examine the main arguments of the Bush administration to justify a military intervention in Iraq. The theories used to explain the actions of the U.S. are system level analysis, hegemonism and realism while the UN Charter will be applied as a normative theory.

Preschools are nowadays a big part of almost every childhood in Swedish society and the relationships that are built there are important for the child and the child?s future integration in the world of knowledge and education. The preschool teachers are therefore the first persons the child links to beyond the parent. That?s why the relations between the parent and the preschool teacher are an important and interesting aspect in the cooperation between them.

The base for the study is laid during an internship at a regional office in Brussels. The study initially concentrates on the function and activities of different regional offices located in Brussels, in order to answer the core question.The main focus is to reveal an eventual change of cooperation patterns between different regional offices, and in particular the eventual redirection away from a main cooperation between offices deriving from the same national state.Through an empirical material, based on a series of interviews, an analysis is made using three hypotheses concerning the patterns of cooperation among regional offices.The notion of a coming change stated by, in particular, two older studies is used as a theoretical steppingstone with the conclusion that a change, in the way offices collaborate, has taken place..

Fleets have the ability to affect an adversary?s use of the seas for transportation. Nations have in numerous occasions exercised this power in order to ravage their opponent?s trade in times of conflict with the purpose of diminishing their military might. Great naval thinkers like Mahan and Corbett have described this use of seapower during conflicts in great depth but theories regarding the use of seapower to affect a nation?s peacetime economy in order to achieve limited political goals is lacking.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate what kind of motives where behind the long term decisions for the Swedish military defense in 2000 and 2004. This leads to the questions that the essay is meant to answer; 1. Were the motives behind the two decisions for the Swedish military defense of economic character or an adjustment of security and defense policy? 2. Was the parliament united in the two decisions and if they were not, why? 3.

The aim of this paper is to try to explain how specific, foreign policy decisions are made, and why one state decides to use violence against another state. A qualitative method is used, and text and documents are analysed. The two theoretical points of departure are central within foreign policy analysis: realism´s theories on external threats and constructivism´s theories on ideas´ policy influence. The empirical case chosen is the US decision to use military violence against Iraq. The paper investigates whether the real threat from Saddam Hussein´s Iraq was the cause of the American military attacks, or whether the ideas of leading politicians in the USA were decisive for the decision to invade the country.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of a present function of today´s public library, namely the function of meeting place; here called the social function or social space. Two small town libraries are included in the study, and the questions examined are:How is this function described at the two libraries and what similarities and differences are there between the two? How can one describe the relation between how the library as social space is described in research and at the libraries? The theoretical framework used in examining these questions, consists of three different discourses in culture policy (the discourse of state, market and civil society) and theories on civil society and the public library. A summary of current research makes visible eight different aspects of the public library as a social space. These aspects functions as parts of the theoretical framework as well.

This Bachelor Thesis in the area of Computer Science and Work Science describes the process of design and development of an IT-tool between the municipality of Ron-neby and TietoEnator a development and consultancy firm, the Gothenburg office. The thesis focuses mainly on the cooperation between the consultant designer and the local municipal. Through cooperation, the organisation is incorporated into the tool and the tool is incorporated into the organisation. Concepts that are central in this thesis are design, cooperation and tailoring. A question raised is, if distance work and extensive cooperation might be a good way of working in the process of design and development, when the organisation is being incorporated into the tool.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate what kind of motives where behind the long term decisions for the Swedish military defense in 2000 and 2004. This leads to the questions that the essay is meant to answer; 1. Were the motives behind the two decisions for the Swedish military defense of economic character or an adjustment of security and defense policy? 2. Was the parliament united in the two decisions and if they were not, why? 3.

The aim of this study is to examine how social workers and pree-school teachers resonate about their experiences of cooperation with each other, in relation to maltreated children and the duty to report. Several studies show that there is a difference between how many children that is suspected of maltreatment and how many that are reported to social service. In Sweden, pre-school staff are obliged to notify the suspicion of child abuse according to 14: 1 SoL, but previous research indicates that the obligation to declare is not used to the extent that it should. One reason for the low notification rate is  the interaction between preschool and the social services shortcomings.Therefore, we believe it is relevant to examine how the cooperation really looks like between the organizations, when the child is being abused or at risk of suffering. The results of the study are based on qualitative semi-structured interviews with four preschool teachers and four administrators.

The purpose of this essay was to study the implementation of a policy document, which concerns questions of integration, in a municipality with an indirect government. I have especially focused on issues regarding how civil servants describe the usage of a specific policy document and to what extent their autonomy and the indirect government have had an impact on implementation, and to what extent signals from surrounding institutions have had an impact on the creation of the policy document. The study was based on qualitative interviews in groups, pairs and with single individuals with twenty-seven civil servants and politicians working with issues concerning the specific policy document.One of the conclusions of my study is that the reason for producing the document in the first place is that the municipality as an organization strives to acquire a sense of legitimacy. The intentions of the document have only partly been implemented by the civil servants and politicians, since the document is not used in their daily work. Here, their autonomy has played an important part, as the choice to not use the document is the servants' own.

A current debate is going on in Sweden about the health-care organization, how it is structured today and how it should be structured in the future. Despite major changes in the county council structures, they still got problems with for instance economy and the providing of staff. As an answer to these problems new solutions are being developed.In this thesis I examine such a solution consisting of cooperation between county councils. The aim of the thesis is to examine how and why the county councils in Sörmland and Västmanland have made a decision regarding cooperation over the administrative border.My contribution is to construct a model over change and decision processes that can be used in other cases as well. The conclusion is partly that the decision to cooperate is built on changing structural factors, such as economy, demography and medical development.

The aim of this study was to examine how the social services could investigate and support children of irregular immigrants within the boundaries of the law. More specifically it aimed to examine the legal possibilities and obstacles for the social services to support irregular immigrants, how the officials at the social services act considering the legal aspects, and how they reason morally and ethically when dealing with irregular immigrants. To answer the aim of the study the theory of positive law was used combined with qualitative interviews with two officials at the social services. Moreover a small quantitative telephone study with officials in the social services and with voluntary organizations was made. The study has used theories of sociology of law, law and ethics, and professional (civil) disobedience.

Purpose/Aim: The aim is to examine the cooperation between the magazine Veckorevyn and its Internet based counterpart, veckorevyn.com. The purpose is also to see if veckorevyn.com is taking advantage of Internet and its possibilities.Material/Method: There are two qualitative methods used for this study: interviews and a three-pieced content analysis. The material analyzed is the magazine Veckorevyn (number 25/2008) and the website www.veckorevyn.com during a two week period.Main results: The study shows that Veckorevyn and veckorevyn.com have several differences, but also some similarities. The result is not unexpected, since we are dealing with two different types of media. There seems to be some cooperation, though on the web it is not very visible.