The aim of this master?s thesis is to study the discourses on culture as developed by EU Commission. The method applied is a discoursebased historical analysis, where analysis of arguments and metaphors are functional to the enlightening of the construction of discourses within EU cultural policy. EU official documents constitute the empirical material studied. The theoretical framework of the thesis draws upon cultural public sphere theory as well instrumentalist cultural policy research.

When a country faces a decline in business activity, companies have to struggle to gain external capital. It is even more important for small enterprises to get capital, as they normally do not have enough collateral to receive traditional bank loans. In Bangladesh, Grameen Bank started with micro credit programs in the early 90?s, that included small capital loans and leasing of machines. Nowadays these micro credit programs have developed to function even in industrialized countries.

The following essay aims at the interplay between regional och municipal growth work, and theway cultural heritage is used in growth work strategies. The main issue has been whether theregional strategies are followed up in the municipal strategies, which has been investigated bymeans of question which impact the region?s strategies has at the local level.The essay draws upon an instrumental perspective on cultural heritage and cultural environment,here defined as instruments in the national development and growth efforts. Three publicationsthat highlights potential roles of cultural heritage and cultural environment to act as instrumentsin the regional and municipal development and growth efforts has thereby been selected astheoretical models. These roles has further been summarized in a tabular form as a schematicdivision of main themes with sub-categories, used as a framework for deciphering the regionaland municipal strategies.A content analysis of available strategies at both regional and local levels have been used as amethod for investigating the issue, where the role of cultural heritage and cultural environment(as defined in the schematic table) has guided the reading.

This critical examination of the concept of cultural heritage is based on an overall phenomenological approach, with focus on Alfred Schütz?s further development of Edmund Husserl?s idea of the lifeworld. With strong emphasis on the subjective and intersubjective dimensions, the concept of cultural heritage is contextualized, analysed and criticized from different aspects for the purpose of enriching the discourse of cultural heritage.A literature based methodology is used, including a hermeneutic analysis of theoretical texts in the field of cultural heritage studies and the new Swedish Culture Environmental Law (?Kulturmiljölagen?) and related bills. Qualitative interviews deal with people?s notions about the concepts of culture, cultural heritage and intangible cultural heritage.

Social capital is a relatively new concept that has received considerable attention in various community branches. The concept relates to people?s contact and relationship with each other, where their social network is seen as a resource. An extensive network of contacts and trust between people often go hand in hand. People with high social capital have high trust in their fellow human beings and vice versa.

Venture capital firms and private equity firms have been the subject of much controversy in the last decade. During this period economies throughout the world have seen a steady increase of these types of firms as owners of companies. In Sweden this has certainly been the case and many argue that this trend will continue to grow stronger in the future. This trend is by many regarded as dangerous and as a threat to the ownership model that has characterized the Swedish economy for decades. Family ownership has been widely regarded as the most beneficial and responsible ownership model in Sweden.

Currently there is a tendency in the EU to adjust the minimum-capital requirement. In France and Germany the requirement for private limited liabilities has been totally abolished, whilst other countries have chosen to reduce their requirement. The Swedish law concerning the minimum-capital requirement is from 1st of April 2010 being lowered to 50 000 SEK. In common law jurisdictions such as United Kingdom and USA a minimum-capital requirement does not exist. The european main argument to keep such a requirement is that it accomplishes a creditor protection.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to test for the existence of Capital Structure Arbitrage oppertunities in the equity-credit markets. Methodology: The mispricing of Credit Default Swap contracts are calculated and used as input in an Equity-Credit market trading strategy. The returns are then evaluated with a modified Value-at-Risk simulation. Theoretical perspectives: A Merton-based structural model, CreditGrades, is used for credit pricing and a mispricing-convergence trading-strategy between the credit and equity markets is implemented. Empirical foundation: Daily quotes for the Credit Default Swap spread of 37 European firms were collected for a period of two years, as well as equity-prices for the same period and the previous two years, used for model calibration.

This is a qualitative essay that has its starting point in the deindustrialized community in the county of Kalmar. At the time deindustrialization started, the globalization and the technical development took form, this resulted in increasing traveling in the world. The communities that had lost their industries had to find new ways of surviving. The politicians used the increasing travelling and tourism and saw a new industry in the tourism, therefore they made cultural heritage visible. Main focus lies in the will from politicians to visualize cultural heritage for economic gain and the administration of cultural heritage that in essence had to accept a new use of the cultural heritage.

It often occurs that the spirit regarding the future as a conservator is rather pessimistic. Howcome that there are so few employed conservators, when the need for conservation obviouslyis big? What kind of changes is needed for a better status regarding the conservation?This thesis concerns the development of the field of conservation in Sweden. What havehappened, what will happen and, particularly, what should happen? The information wasgathered from literature studies and interviews during the spring of 2010.

Abstract The increased focus on social capital theory has made its way into labour economics. This has led to the creation of a vast literature about the use of networks and informal search methods in the labour-market, a literature that to some extent also deals with immigrants search behaviour and their relatively high unemployment rate. Characteristic for the literature in the area is the lack of analysis of actual networks. Which types of contacts do these networks contain; how are the networks used in the labour-market; and which type of network generates a high amount of social capital. These questions are important for the general understanding of how social capital functions, within the labour-market, but also for the understanding of how immigrants use their networks in order to find themselves jobs.

El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar los contenidos culturales de algunos libros de enseñanza del español, como lengua extranjera, publicados en Suecia.Estos libros de textos fueron analizados basándose en la información cultural y centrándose en los aspectos interculturales que estos pudieran presentar. Para analizar la información cultural los datos han sido divididos en datos concernientes a España y América Latina, respectivamente. Para abordar la interculturalidad se ha tenido como base principal la contrastividad cultural.Este trabajo llega a la conclusión que dos de los libros estudiados presentan de una buena forma la contrastividad cultural, sin embargo, su falta de variedad en la temática cultural y su falta de acercamiento a una discusión sobre los estereotipos, hacen que los libros, finalmente, nos entreguen una visión incompleta de la perspectiva intercultural.Palabras claves: enseñanza del español, cultura, la perspectiva intercultural, contrastividad cultural..

The aim of this paper is to research and discuss the role the cultural politics play for the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen) and the meaning culture politics have within the labour market policy. A research has shown that Arbetsförmedlingen evaluates unemployed cultural workers differently than regular registered jobseekers. From an instrumental perspective on political implementation this can be considered as an anomali. Arbetsförmedlingen?s mandate derives from the government and its authority is a tool for carrying out state policy.

AbstractWhen immigrants move to Sweden from their native country it is not unusual that they experience some kind of identity crises. Their own experience of their cultural identity can be very problematic and they often lose a part of what they previously saw as their own identity. To handle such crises the immigrants can use different strategies. They can for example accept their disparity, deny it or emphasize it. The aim of this study is to examine how immigrants in Sweden experience that their cultural identity has changed since they moved here from a country that has a culture that is different from the Swedish culture.

The study analyses the planning of the Edsvik Konsthall in Sollentuna and the first 14 years after the opening 1996 until late 2010. The study focused on the cultural discourses that have influenced the Edsvik as result of the choice of managers, the public figures and actions taken by different actors around the art gallery.The influence by different actors is analyzed in the art field terminology defined by Pierre Bourdieu.I have demonstrated how the head of Edsvik Konsthall, because of different social capital and habitus, raised different types of conflicts on the local art field.  .