Aim: The purpose of this work is to investigate what differences there are between a credit union that is connected to Sweden?s Credit Association and an independent association, and how these differences have affected the union?s success. Method: A qualitative study has been made by means of email and telephone interviews. Respondents were chosen from Sweden?s Credit Association, Credit Guarantee Association in Gävleborg and Övre Norrland Guarantee Association. The interviews were then analyzed in the light of our theoretical studies. Result and conclusions: We have found that there are three major differences between the unions.

Abstract The overall aim of this paper is to examine the impact of ideologies and norms on a legal system. Against a background of a description of the hierarchy of norms in Swedish labour law and in European Union law, respectively, the paper aims to specifically demonstrate the problems caused by the different hierarchies of norms when implementing EU directives in Swedish labor law. The research question examines how the trade unions? right to industrial action towards an undertaker providing transnational services by posting of workers, is affected by the implementation of the Directive 96/71/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 1996 concerning the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services. The paper answers the question under what conditions the Swedish trade unions have the right to take industrial action in situations of posting of workers. Through the study of sources of law and adhering to traditional jurisprudence, this paper investigates the legislation regarding trade unions? rights to take industrial action in situations of posting of workers. In addition to the jurisprudential research, a glance at the history of ideologies is provided.

The purpose of this study is to make a close and critical scrutiny of the EU Lisbon Strategy and the assumption of `sustainable growth´. A basic question is to clarify what is meant by `sustainability´ in the economic and the environmental dimension respectively, and also, to analyse the meaning of `sustainable growth´. Secondly, I try to investigate the relationship between the economical and environmental dimensions of the strategy. Are the goals of the dimensions compatible and mutually supporting or are they conflicting? By illuminating these issues the study moves towards a final set of questions: What are the arguments that encourage or counteract the Lisbon assumption of `sustainable growth´? Is the European Union approaching `sustainable growth´ looking at different economical and ecological indicators? What are the prospects for the Lisbon Strategy as a way towards global `sustainable development´?.

The process of economic globalization has in recent decades increased the power of multinational corporations. In recognition of their powerful position, corporations have begun to adopt Corporate Social Responsibility as a way of managing their social impact. Their interaction with the surrounding society reaches a peak when involved in large-scale projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam in China and the Narmada Valley Development Project in India. This essay analyses the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility in a comparative study between the two cases. By using current research, it focuses on the role of civil society for making Corporate Social Responsibility effective in developing countries.

The aim of this study is to make a comparative study between the grievances during the Dacke Warand the German Peasant´s War. These two conflicts may have occurred separately, regarding bothgeographical and chronological distances but also share common issues for this comparative study.Less than two decades separates these two conflicts and they were all by their own serious insurrectionsduring their time. While the German Peasant´s War was the greatest uprising in Europe up tothe French Revolution, the Dacke War was the biggest Peasant Rebellion in Scandinavian history.While the German Peasant War has been studied and researched by historians for a relative longtime, the Dacke War has been neglected in research history. If it were not for the Swedish professorLars-Olof Larsson?s studies during foremost in the 1960s, the Dacke War would have been a historicallyuncharted territory of research indeed.

AbstractThis paper is a comparative study of the final reports of the Norwegian and Danish power studies performed in 2003. While the Danish study found that democracy is thriving, the conclusion of the Norwegian power study was that democracy is in a crisis. The purpose of this paper is to find explanations to why the studies in two Nordic countries arrived at such different results.Methodologically, the paper consists of an ideological text analysis and critical analyses of the discourse. In order to study how the results of the power studies can differ so considerably, the following aspects have been surveyed; 1) external contexts (government inquiries); 2) work process (the researchers? background, role and co-operation); 3) the problem areas and themes studied; and 4) power perspectives.

This study is about trust for public institutions and what the foundation is that builds this confidence. For this study I have used three dependent variables to define different aspects of public institutions. These are trust in the legal system, trust in political parties and state of health services nowadays.  The method that is used in the study is based on a comparative study between two countries, Sweden and Portugal.  The actual result is made up by comparing means and regressions by using 13 independent variables. Many of the independent variables that has been used is deriving from institutional theories of Putnam and Rothstein These theories points out the importance of strong traditions of civic engagement and that the success of the trust of the institutions depends in large part on the horizontal bonds that make up social capital.

Regionalisation has become an increasingly important phenomenon in a globalized world. As models of regional integration, the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are two prominent examples. This thesis seeks to explore through a comparative analysis, the different mechanisms and institutions for handling breaches against fundamental values within the two regional organizations. Inter-linked with the issue of the legal-institutional framework is that of what values the mechanisms are designed to protect. The method used for the analysis is first and foremost that of public international and European law, but the thesis also attempts to give a broader picture of the issues presented.

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.

After being excluded from the Swedish Social Democrat party in 1917, the Revolutionary Socialists founded the Social Democrat Left Party. From this point onwards, the Social Democratic hegemony and dominant position within the Swedish workers movement and political landscape was challenged. This thesis aims to investigate the power struggles between these two parties, the Revolutionary Socialists and the Social Democrats, and their desire to influence control of the unions. Taking cues from earlier research calling for a more localized look at this struggle, this thesis turns to a case study of union matters of the the Factory Workers Union Local 84, at Västerviks Tändsticksfabrik, a match manufacturer and largest employer in the Swedish coastal town of Västervik from 1925 to 1930. Organizational material including meeting protocols, annual reports and member registration lists from the local political parties, cooperative union organizations (VFS) and Local 84 serve as secondary data sources.

Most of the sea areas within the European Union are overfished and the catches are estimated to be up to five times lager then the amount to achieve a sustainable fishery. In doing so, the management of EU's marine resources comes to be questioned. The purpose of this study was to analyze EU's administration of marine fisheries and to explore which steps that can be undertaken to counteract the negative trend. The questions of the study were: How does the EU administrate today?s marine fishery recourses? And: How can the problem whit overfishing be discouraged? To answer these questions a comparative analyses were used to compare and evaluate administrative systems.

The word crisis is often used in everyday language, but according to political theory it actually refers to a crisis situation within a country where national interests suddenly are at stake demanding that important and complex decisions must be made within certain time constraints. These decisions can in turn lead up to most fatal consequences. USA, being one of the world's superpowers is most certainly involved in crisis situations directly or indirectly, frequently or more seldom. Amounts of people get suddenly involved and even more people can be drawn in by the decisions that are made thereby. Research has shown that the character of a leader affects decision-making.

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.

Invandrade kvinnor i Handels. Föreställningar om arbetskraftsinvandrade kvinnor i Handelsnytt 1961-1976. (Immigrant women in Handels. Conceptions of labour immigrated women in Handelsnytt 1961-1976).The primary purpose of this thesis is to analyze the written conceptions of labour immigrated women in Handelsnytt, a Swedish Trade Union magazine. The analyses of the conceptions are based on theoretical categories of class, gender and ethnicity.

Sweden became a member of the European Union in 1995. When Sweden entered the Union the government also agreed on implementing every law, regulation and directive the Union have and will have in force. One directive the Union wants every country to implement is the Directive (93/104/EG) concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time. This directive includes regulations concerning the relationship between employer and employees. The regulations in the directive must be in force before January 1 2007.One of the main points in the directive is the possibility for the parties on the labour market to reach agreements through collective agreements that deviate from the legislation concerning work hours.