The Afghan war post 9/11 has become the source of multiple case studies. Recent studies suggest that variations in domestic support for deployment of troops in Afghanistan can be explained by means of the strategic narratives provided by the policymakers of the contributing state; a strong consistent narrative increases public support. Scholars recognize a Swedish catch-all narrative, which suggests weakens the narrative, thus raising the uncertainty among the public. This thesis investigates the projection of Swedish strategic narrative through elite Swedish newspapers. The content analysis reveals an inconsistency between the policymaker?s formation of the strategic narrative and the narrative projected by individual newspapers.

Gender is a universal factor that is unavoidable in classroom interaction between pupils and teachers. The principle aim of this essay is to illustrate whether, during the interaction between pupil and teachers still occurs behavior that expresses a gender order. We also want to establish if the ones who attract attention from the teachers is the individual, or if teachers still on a subconscious or conscious level, think of the pupils gender and ascribes him or her some characteristics or qualities. Especially we want to bring out the pupils thoughts and sights of there is a difference on how teachers treat boys and girls. Another purpose we wanted to achieve was to illustrate how teachers work with the concept of equivalence between the sexes, according to Lpo94.Our essay is built on our studies around what teachers think on how they treat the pupils, on the basis of gender perspective.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of language policy in the Post-Soviet states Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wherein the states are seen as rational actors using language as an instrument in the nation-building process. With a take-off point in an underframe of theories on the nation, national identity, instrumentalism, power and the particular role of language in the nation-building process, this thesis shows that language is a key instrument used by the two states.The Ukrainian and Kazakhian language policies create and put across a certain image of the nation, by emphasising the titular languages as symbols of the new states. The line of argument in the language policy is a balance act between large-scale promotion of titular languages and a careful and inclusive attitude towards the Russian language. The biggest differences are that Ukraine, compared to Kazakhstan, has a more comprehensive and consequent language policy with a deeply rooted historic rhetoric. The most obvious instruments of the states in language policy is censuses, corpus-planning and the state choosing one official language..

Who is integrating school-holiday home? It is for the teachers, recreational pedagogue or the students? How do the students think and act to keep the different activities apart?My purpose was to study how children sort the day between school and recreational home interactions. The issues were: How do they distinguish between the different activities during the day?  See the students their stay after school program as part of the school day? Who decides whether you have to go to school, and whether you have to go to after school program? And do you really have to?I have interviewed six students at an elementary school, based from a phenomenographic perspective, I've used myself of issues that students have been able to respond from a school perspective and after-school perspective. My interview questions have been comparative in nature, where the same question have given different answers depending on whether the question focused on school or the afterschool program.

Due to an increased population in cities the need of densification of cities increases. This means that the amount of ecological elements in the city is at risk of decreasing. Ecological services contribute to the city?s climate by softening the negative impacts that densification of cities means. Thus increases the will and ambition in city planning in to preserve greenery.This is an interdisciplinary thesis within the subject of geography that studies Biotope Area Factor (BAF), a planning tool that is used in city planning with the purpose of compensating for lost ecological services associated with new housing estate.

This is a thesis written at the Swedish University of Agriculture inAlnarp within the landscape architecture education. The essay dealswith the landscape architect's professional identity and how it isdescribed in different contexts along with how it is perceived byprofessional landscape architects.Misunderstandings and preconceptions concerning the landscapearchitect's professional identity is common, both within and outsidethe branch of industry that includes the vocation. This raises problemswithin the industry and for the individual landscape architect. To findout if the root of the problems lies in available descriptions of theoccupation a study has been made. The study includes how thelandscape architect is defined in easily accessible information fromthe internet and in literature as well as in industry-orientedinformation such as dissertations and information from SverigesArkitekter (the Swedish Architects).

The purpose of the essay is to investigate whether the principles formulated by Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler, concerning strategic non-violent conflicts, can serve a purpose when analyzing improvised non-violent conflicts. The principles are derived from factors that have been prominent in earlier successful improvised non-violent conflicts.The essay is based on two research questions; if the factors included in the principles formulated by Ackerman and Kruegler, exist in the two cases that this study investigates, and if those principles offer a satisfactory explanation for the outcome of an improvised non-violent conflict.To answer the questions the study uses a comparative method, where the improvised non-violent conflict of 2004 in Ukraine is compared to the improvised non-violent conflict of 1988 in Burma.The answer to the first question shows that the factors contained in the principles previously mentioned, exists in both cases. The answer to the second question is more uncertain, as there seems to be doubts on whether the case of Ukraine really was completely improvised. Another reason for caution is that the factors contained in the principles, only consider actions made by non-violent actors, and not by opponents or third parties. Thus the risks of missing vital explanatory factors are substantial..

Our purpose with this essay was to make a comparative study of the methadone programme in Sweden versus Denmark. We wanted to examine the issue by illustrating the historical and recent development of the drug political policy and the growth of the methadone programme in both countries.We chose to work with the following questions:1. What differences occur in the methadone programme if you compare the same in Denmark and Sweden? 2. How is the respective methadone programmes designed? 3.

Stockholm city has recently raised its ambitions for bicycle traffic, the goal is to achieve a larger andsafer bicycle traffic. But cyclists are more vulnerable on the roads than other vehicle users because of the lack of protection. This means that a large proportion of road safety for cyclists is based on the design of the traffic environment. Since most serious bicycle accidents are those that occur in conflict with motor vehicles, and the majority of these accidents occur at intersections, these areas are of great importance forcyclist?s safety.The  purpose  of  this  paper  is  to  highlight  bicycle  accidents  at  intersections  and  to  suggest improvements  in three accident-prone junctions  in Stockholm.  This is  achieved  by  the study of accident statistics, literature and finally three case studies.The literature study focused on cyclists, traffic safety and traffic safety measures.

Quality Assurance in Service Procurement --- Total Quality and Total Quality Management refer to popular management philosophies in organizations these days. The purchasing department has an important part in the strive for organizational quality as several studies show corporate spend is significant and increasing. In this master thesis I study the actions companies take to ensure quality in service procurement. I argue that managing quality when sourcing services is particularly tricky, because of the special characteristics that belong to services. The purpose of the study is to examine whether different actions are taken to ensure the quality of different kinds of services.

The study was conducted with an landscape approach with an subject related approach in the field of environmental psychology to investigate how road design affects drivers' choice of speed. The purpose was to portray road environments on thoroughfares in urban areas to motivate motorists to keep the speed limit and thus increase road safety for vulnerable road users. The task question was formulated, how can thoroughfares in suburban settings be portrayed to motivate motorists to reduce speed? The study was conducted throughout a literature review of motivational speed measures along with interviews with road design experts at the Swedish Transport Administration. Case studies were conducted on three thoroughfares in the Stockholm suburbs Vallentuna, Upplands Väsby and Danderyd.

Prior research on the ability of financial ratios to predict bankruptcies has shown a significant difference between the companies that went into bankruptcy and those that survived. This paper investigates whether there is a difference in the prediction ability of financial ratios during the last financial crisis compared to relatively normal macroeconomic environments in which most previous studies have been conducted. We use univariate analysis to compare companies that went into bankruptcy during 2010 and 2011 with companies that remained active. Our dataset consists of 51 failed companies that are matched with 102 companies that remained active. All companies were Swedish limited companies with more than 50 employees and the comparison is made with 26 financial ratios.

This paper deals with institutional and structural factors' influence on democratic transition in limited multiparty regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparing the cases Kenya and Tanzania, of which the former has made a transition to democracy and the latter has not, this paper reaches the conclusion that political traditions, the coalescing of the opposition, and the elites ability to learn from the electoral process is essential for a transition to democracy. In the specific cases, the harshness of the Moi regime and the Tanzanian vision of national unity may possibly carry some explanatory power, alongside the pressure from international actors.These results have been reached through the application of a comparative case study, where democratic transition constitutes the dependent variable. It should be noted that a harsh definition of the term transition has been applied, according to which the incumbents actual loss of an election is a necessary indicator for transition. However, the Freedom House and Polity scores have been brought up as complement of this definition.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the policy proposal The right to Challenge (utmaningsrätt) and the political motivation that has been used to implement it, as well as the result of it. The focus is on a case study of the implementing in Örebro municipality. Moreover, a comparative study is done to investegate the differences and similarities between Örebro and other municipalities that have chosen to implement The right to Challenge.The main question in this essay is How did Örebro?s municipality implement it and what was the result? There is also four minor questions: How was The right to Challenge motivated and what hopes did the politicans have for it? What has The right to Challenge so far contributed with in Örebro municipality? What do the entreprenures think about their oppertunity to challenge the municipality? What similarities and differences exists between Örebro and other municipalities that have chosen to implement The right to Challenge?The results that are presented in this essay generate conclusions that the implementing of The right to Challenge was motivated with arguments that it will result in increased diversity, improved efficiency, and reduced costs. This has however not been the case since very few challenges have been submitted, most likely due to a lack of promotion.

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this thesis was to examine how multi channel publishing in different stages effect the work for journalists.Material/Method: The thesis is based on ten case studies selected from the literature and one conducted especially for this thesis. The case studies have been categorized according to a model that describes three strategies for multi channel publishing. The first strategy is to have a primary publishing channel, the second is to have separate editorial staffs for all publishing channels and the third is to treat all publishing channels equally.Main results: Journalists working for companies using the first strategy have not experienced any major differences in working conditions or work practices. For journalists employed by companies using the second strategy for multi channel publishing the effects on the journalists was noticeable but not major. The effects on journalists in companies using the third strategy are mainly stress and an uncertainty regarding how to use special media techniques..