According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

In Europe, the central governments are the ones to coordinate the international standards and strategies regarding GPP; Green Public Procurement. However in Spain a GPP program was introduced late and only applied to the Central Government Institutions, (AGEA) (BOE nr. 027, 2008). These means that smaller administrations, such as, Autonomous Regions, Municipalities and Town Councils were not included in the program. The absence of a national program which excludes those governments made them introduce their own criteria for GPP, and the difference in criteria varies from one government to the other.

This study attempts to examine the existence and development of price differences in the car sector in Europe. The time period is between 1995, the year of the Swedish entrance in the European Union, and 2003. The study is based on data supplied by the European commission, on a bi-annual basis. Both price differences in general in the EU, and price differences between Sweden and other countries in the EU are examined. The theoretical law of one price is related to the economic integration of the EU and the car sector.

Racial discrimination can occur in many ways ? intentional and non intentional ? and in many places ? perhaps most observed in the labor market. The Swedish labor union, LO, is an important party in this market, and discusses the issue frequently in a number of different documents. These documents are being analyzed as discourse in this study, with attention paid to the rhetoric regarding ?immigrants?, i.e.

The purpose of this essay is to examine wage-earners' investment funds from the ideological point of view. Were they in any way an integrated part of social democratical democratic socialism and reformism? I emphasize Olof Palme´s ideological idea of democratic socialism and reformism, and how he handled the issue. How did the question of these funds correspondent with the basic ideological points of view, and what was the standpoint of Palme in this issue.My method is built upon a deep study and analyses of SAP board of party and the standing committees protocol in the light of Olof Palme´s and SAP's ideology. I even use information from literature, inquiries and dissertations.

The focus of the thesis is: how conditions for agriculture in the Republic of Macedonia today may form the basis for development of the agricultural sector towards conditions needed for future accession into the European Union. The method for investigating this question has been to look at newly available farm monitoring system (FMS) data from Macedonia. Also to look at the latest government policies created in the country for the agricultural sector and rural areas in relation to the requirements for EU accession. Articles and empirical studies published by other authors related to the questions which arise in this study have been reviewed and presented herein. Trade relations, trade patterns and national economic and agricultural trends are displayed to provide a background overview for the study of the agricultural sector.

This thesis aims at studying the European Union?s actions against applicant states. In this case Turkey has been chosen as a variable, because of its unique applying accession.Turkey is a country which has been applying for a membership of the European Union since 1989 and Turkey is the only state which has been searching for membership for more than twenty years. Turkey has been given a lot of critic of not fulfilling the political criteria of the Copenhagen criteria?s.

Introduction: Studies have shown that women are not always satisfied with the effects of contraception and that contraceptive advice is perceived as non-specific. Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate what contraceptive women have chosen to use in the different phases of their reproductive lives, and what they felt had influenced their choice. Method: A retrospective cross-sectional comparative study with a quantitative approach. A survey with fixed and multiple-choice options was sent to five hundred 45-year old women. Result: The study shows that various birth controls are different in the normal reproductive life.

The Swedish consumption of lamb a increasing, and today we yearly eat a kilo of lamb per person each year. As a consequence the Swedish degree of self production according to lamb is steadily decreasing, and is today about 39 %.Today Swedish Meats is now cooperating with the Swedish lamb breeders organisation to raise that percentage. At the same time the European Union presents a new agricultural reform, the MTR (Mid Term Review). The shape of this new reform is not yet fully known, but the general policy has been more or less outlined. The new reform is split into three propositions: the farm model, the regional model and the mixed model.

This essay is about the Swedish textile heritage but also with an analysis of handmade hemp textiles from Transylvania. Plant fibers such as hemp and flax grown in a soil nature that existed around the subsistence farm. The knowledge of the earth nature combined with textiles has not been specifically studied in the research from the last century. By examining simple folk textiles of hemp shows how the textiles also are an universal field. The focus is on the raw material which is a transformation between nature and culture.With a phenomenological approach, the study will describe how the textile heritage announcement molds a territory in the interpretation of "our" Swedish plantfibres for textiles uses.

This essay examines two communist parties in Sweden; The Communist Party (Kommunistiska partiet [KP]) and Sweden's Communist party (Sveriges kommunistiska parti [SKP]). Furthermore, this essay is a comparative study where the two parties' political agendas are compared. The method with which the study was conducted is a quantitative content analysis, where the frequencies of usage pertaining to certain words and expressions have been measured. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx has also been compared to these two parties' political agendas concerning words and expressions. This was done in order to determine which of the examined parties stands closer to the aforementioned original document from an ideological perspective.

During a long period of time, rental doctors have created a vast debate in Sweden. Currently, there is a shortage of doctors working in Sweden and to guarantee the lawful right to healthcare of high quality the counties must hire doctors through employment agencies. There are different opinions about rental doctors, some thinks the temporary employment results in a negative work environment and furthermore puts the patients at risk. Other people consider the Swedish healthcare to not function without rental doctors.  The purpose of this essay is to investigate rental doctors through a legal perspective and how temporary employment actually affects the patients? security and the work environment in Sweden?s healthcare.

A method for intra vitam detection of bornaviral infection and diagnosis of bornaviral dis-ease in the cat is currently lacking. The aim of this work was to explore the possibility of using the proximity ligation assay (PLA), with its capacity of recognizing femtomolar con-centrations of a protein, as a method for detection of the minute quantities of antigen and antibodies that are present in the tissues and body fluids of a bornaviraly infected cat. For this purpose reliable comparative assays, in the form of an ELISA and an IFA, had to be established. When this proved impossible within the time frame of the project, the aim of the study had to be abandoned, further underscoring the need for improved means of detec-tion of bornaviral antibodies and antigen..

The purpose of the essay is to make a comparative study between the Christian value parity and the Christian Democrats. To answer the purpose the following questions are asked: What are the similarities and differences between party programs? What are the similarities and differences in their origin? The theory used is based on Reidar Larlsson political ideologies, there were two ideologies used to apply on the result: conservatism and liberalism. The method was ideologies analysis. The result of the study shows that there were some similarities and some differences between the part programs.

As computerized communication and the Internet have evolved, the possibility to express and affirm one?s identity in new ways has also been created. Facebook, which has taken a leading role among the social fora on the Internet and succeeded worldwide, is my choice of study due to the number of people that actively choose to present themselves on it. The purpose of this thesis is to study the identity construction on Facebook through the activities a member partakes in, as well as how the presentation of oneself is written and if it is a result of a self-reflective process of the individual.The rationale for the qualitative study has been personal interviews in order to get an insight into how the individuals use and present themselves on Facebook and - in the interaction with others ? how they construct their own identity. My hypothesis has been that we, in the interaction with others, have a great possibility to create and understand our own identities. The study results show that identity formation is a constant process and that it is indeed a self-reflective project.