In the late 20th century the Soviet Union collapsed and the eastern European countries were freed from the communist Russian oppression. However, during the Soviet period Marxism was a recurring life stance in the Swedish textbooks for religious education in the gymnasieskola. Today the Soviet Union has collapsed, but the Marxist philosophy has had a huge effect on both single individuals and the modern society as a whole. Nonetheless, the Marxist life stance is nowadays often being replaced by other non- religious life stances in the textbooks of religious education.Therefore, this analysis is a hermeneutic study of the presentation of the Marxist life stance in textbooks for Swedish religious education. The purpose of the paper is to investigate how these textbooks portray the Marxist life stance, and to prove that the societal context and the individual author have an immense effect in the portrayal of both religions and life stances in religious education.

In the post-war era many European countries were recovering from the ravages of the bombings of the second world war destroying whole countries. Sweden being neutral was spared the destruction of war but instead we demolished almost as much housing all by ourselves. A social program was modeled to modernize the country and to drag the swedes out of poverty by building one million apartments in just ten years and demolishing the old, dilapidated working-class neighborhoods. The traumatic events of the demolition of large areas of both the central and the outskirts of most Swedish cities is still very much present in the collective memory of people today and the new modernistic districts are still paying the price of that, more than fifty years later. Today these modernistic districts are in need of repair, and they are often homes to groups alienated from society making their reputation even worse.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the politics and activities of the Social Democratic students´ association Spartakus. Their relationships and political and ideological differences towards the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the remaining parts of the Social Democratic youth organisation (SSU) in Linköping during 1969-1971 are examined. To fulfil this aim I have studied relevant literature and interviewed people who were active in Spartakus, as well as people from SSU and SAP in the municipal during the period. I have also studied written material produced by the students´ association itself during the period. The theoretical frame of reference consists of Dahl´s theory on a democratic political order, and party theories like the mass party theory of Duverger, theories from Sjöblom, Panebianco, Lipset and Tingsten and also Gidlund&Möller´s theory about different kinds of party members.

This thesis uses critical discourse analysis to examine how the English-speaking press in Hong Kong constructs the conflict between the political movement Occupy Central and the Chinese central government. The empirical material consists of ten articles from the region?s two largest English-speaking newspapers, Hong Kong?s oldest newspaper, the South China Morning Post, and China?s only national English-speaking newspaper, the China Daily. Building on the works of Teun van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak and John E. Richardson it examines what political ideologies that are favoured by the press and what attitude the press shows for democratic development.

Begreppet counterinsurgency har fått stor uppmärksamhet efter 2001 och USA:s militäraengagemang i Afghanistan och Irak. USA har bedrivit ett gediget utvecklingsarbete sedan dess och en ny doktrin för just counterinsurgency presenterades 2006. Redan 1964 utkom fransmannen David Galula med en bok i ämnet. Det har alltså funnits teorier om counterinsurgency sedan dess. Sovjetunionens engagemang i Afghanistan under 1980-talet slutade med att den afghanska kommunistregimen kollapsade.

In Sweden there has been a surge of interest in the films classified as pilsnerfilms, i.e. comicalfilms produced for little money in the 1930's and containing a more working class and/or ruralsetting then the so called "champagne comedies" from the same era. The concept"pilsnerfilm" is how ever a little vague and although the main focus of this paper ispilsnerfilms, it will also cover other types of comical films made in Sweden between the1930's and 1940's.This paper examines the now-existing network of people interested in these types of movies.It will do so by interviewing seven of the most prominent fans of movies made during the1930's and 1940's. Most of them are living in Stockholm. The paper discuss how through theconsumption of these types of films, a nostalgic gaze is created.

In an international perspective the Russian children s library is a unique institution, being solely committed to children up to 14 years of age. In Russia of today it is, however, being exposed to hard pressure as the economical and social conditions have changed dramatically since the collapse of the USSR. My interest lies in examining this change of living conditions for the children s libraries and how this in turn affect their work and role in the present state. In order to view this change in a longer perspective, I compare the situation for children s libraries during the time of communist regime with that of today using documents about and from children s libraries. I have studied its legal position and conditions, financial and political state, and how the modern society affects children and youth, especially their daily cultural life.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the ideological development of the former communist parties and the contemporary left-wing socialist parties of the Nordic countries. It is aimed at the two decades that have passed since the collaps of the Berlin wall and the parties at hand are; the Norwegian Sosialistisk Venstre, the Danish Socialistisk Folkeparti, the Swedish Vänsterpartiet and the Finnish Vasemmistoliitto. Since the 1960´s these parties have undergone major ideological changes with reference to a widening of their political agenda to an inclusion of democratic ideals as well as the new ideologies of feminism and ecologism. Thus reforming them into modern left-wing socialist parties at different times. The main hypothesis is formulated from the idea that there must be a connection between the startingpoint of reformation and the degree of modernism/traditionalism they show today.

SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] penetrated China in spring of 2003, created havoc in the social society, exposed weaknesses within the political system and pushed the nation towards a crisis of confidence. At the same time the crisis revitalised the Party's position, brought people from different social stratum together and had a beneficial impact on the populace's knowledge on health related issues.What makes the SARS crisis in China interesting for further and deeper investigation is the method it chose to respond to its national crisis. They plan of response was indeed a retrogression back to "older" times, using methods and propaganda very much like those used during Mao Zedong and later Deng Xiaoping. The first step of response was denial and cover up of the real situation, which quickly turned to unprecedented transparency, as the magnitude of SARS became known. The Party and the government were quick to proclaim themselves as the bearer of the key knowledge and information on how to best fight the disease, this in sharp contrast to the political trend of more co-operation between the private and public sector and political transparency.