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 increasing significance of social economy as a concept is linked to general global processes such as the crisis of the welfare state, neoliberal globalization, anti-bureaucracy tendencies and decentralization, but also to a growing political interest in human rights and social development. In Sweden the idea of the social economy generates wide support within civil society as well as within the government and across party political boundaries. Furthermore, what is problematic in this context is the fact that the discussions on the subject tend to be relatively uncritical and often it seems as if though the expansion itself is the main objective. The emphasis on cooperation and the third sector in terms of welfare production implies a set of risks in relation to state responsibility, democracy and the autonomy of civil society. This paper aims to explore those risks and how they can be dealt with within the Swedish context..

The Swedish Military Defence is about to make a large reorganization. Surplus, everything from tanks to personal underwear, enough to equip 800,000 soldiers will be destroyed or sold to the highest bidder. This thesis is a discourse analysis about the argumentation in media between the Military and the enthusiast, who are interested in military vehicles and military surplus..

The intention with the research was to investigate the role of civil society in the Kenyan democratization process. The research intends thus to analyze (1) the role of civil society in Kenya's transition to democracy (1990- 2002), and (2) the role of civil society in the further democratization process (2002- 2013).The results of the research demonstrates that the role of civil society played a crucial role in Kenya?s transition to democracy given that civil society provided with a multiparty- system in 1991. In addition, civil society endowed with education for citizens in order to attain constitutional reforms. As a result, Kenya accomplished a transition to democracy in 2002.

A decision has been made that the Swedish and the Finnish Navy will expand their cooperation by creating the ?Swedish-Finnish Naval Task Group? (SFNTG).Based on Michael Codner?s theory of interoperability, this essay?s aim is to investigate if the Swedish and the Finnish currently are interoperable with each other, due to their military strategic concepts.According to Codner, similarities between the cooperating nation?s military strategic concepts are required in order to reach a high degree of interoperability. This essay will analyze and compare Sweden and Finland?s military strategic concepts, based on three categories; Global Projection, Territorial Defence and Combat Capability.The conclusion is that there are differences between the Swedish and the Finnish military strategic concepts in every category, of varying degrees. By looking at the results of this investigation, it is clear in what direction the two nations have to adapt their concepts to enable a high degree of interoperability for the future of the SFNTG..

Civil disobedience constitutes an interesting ethical phenomena in the democraticstate since the people performing it consciously brakes laws and norms in societyfor purposes they themselves judge to be morally good and just. This thesisexamines whether the phenomena of civil disobedience is justifiable in ademocratic society.In this study civil disobedience is analyzed on two levels. First the problem isanalyzed on a theoretical level in relative to the three, by us established, values:respect for the law, the will of the majority and equality. Second, civildisobedience is analyzed on a more practical level where we test our theoreticalline of argument with the help of two example groups who engages in civildisobedience. The justification of civil disobedience is also analyzed through twoethical perspectives on acting, deontology and consequentialism.Our conclusion is that civil disobedience is justifiable on a theoretical level inrelative to the values we discuss.

There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the Swedish relations to Nato and by doing so see on what terms the cooperation is executed and why. However, Sweden is not a member of Nato and is thereby not seen as an ally of the organization but even so Sweden has a close cooperation with Nato. The theories used in this essay is The Rational Actor Model and The Organizational Behaviour Model by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow. To this a number of additional theorises are used as to complement these two main theories. The aim with these theories is to see which one gives the most satisfying explanation of the Swedish strategy to cooperate with Nato and still not be a member of the alliance or if all theorises are needed.

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.

There are several competing views on how to best utilize air power. Following his quantitative study of air power, Robert Pape developed a theory which focuses on undermining the target state's military strategy. According to Pape it is possible to explain the outcome as a result of military vulnerability. This essay seeks to determine if Pape's theory can predict the outcome of Operation Unified Protector. By using a mixed methods approach on four hypotheses, it will be determined if the operation was a successful case of coercion, if NATO acted according to Pape's model and whether this achieved the desired effects or not. The results reveal that the theory could not successfully predict the outcome of the conflict.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the target to convert the Swedish military aviation industry towards working within the civilian sector was planned and implemented parallel to the target of building a world-class military aircraft. A number of Government bills have been studied, bills directly connected to the JAS-project as well as bills dealing with civilian project ?s for the military aviation industry. The first group includes bills dealing with the JAS-project ?s role in the overarcing defence policy, as well as the Government ?s bill specifying the guidelines for the JAS-project.

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.

Informationsoperationer utgör idag en allt viktigare del i svenska internationella uppdrag. Inom informationsoperationer sorterar funktionerna Psykologiska operationer (psyops) och Civil-Militär samverkan (CIMIC). Enligt grundsynen för informationsoperationer skall CIMIC utgöra en stödfunktion åt psyops under internationella insatser. Dock är inte samarbetet mellan parterna närmare preciserat och beskrivet i Försvarsmaktens dokumentation. Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva och analysera hur funktionen psyops inom Försvarsmakten kan stöttas av stödfunktionen CIMIC vid en internationell insats.För att uppnå syftets ambition använder uppsatsen sig av en deskriptiv metod i syfte att empiriskt beskriva funktionernas karaktärer och egenskaper.

The aim of this thesis is to study the cause of Egypt´s failed development of the transition to democracy and vice versa, the reason why Turkey succeeded in democratic transition. Thesis methodology is a comparative analysis between design units Egypt and Turkey. Thus, the most similar design used in the investigation.European Commission began in 1998 to review Turkey´s political and economic reforms to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. 2005 began negotiations on a Turkish- EU membership. U.S and Egypt have enjoyed close economic, security and democratic cooperation since 1975.

There are changes in Sweden's foreign policy, and Sweden is no longer a non-aligned and neutral nation. Sweden has expressed a willingness to actively participate in creating peace and stability in the world by giving and receiving military assistance in case of war, crisis or disaster. This is described as complete turnaround in Swedish policy compared to the neutrality and non-alignment during the Cold war.However new research shows that defence cooperation is not new in the Nordic region. Sweden cooperated secretly with Denmark and Norway, two NATO countries, about co-operative defence of Scandinavia during the Cold War.Is our historical picture wrong and what we perceive as new and revolutionized not particularly new? Is today's open Nordic defence cooperation a continuation of what was done in secret during the Cold War? The essay investigates and compares two different Swedish defence cooperation?s where one was previously secret and the other is open.