The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the democratization process in Kurdistan on the basis of consolidation democracy with focus on arenas defined by Linz and Stepan (1997), namely economic, political, legal, civil society and arenas of state bureaucracy. Furthermore, I intend to explain Kurdistan?s road toward democratization in Kurdistan from 1991 until today, with a focus on the years 2003-2012. The main results are that Kurdistan has developed conditions that support a future consolidation of democracy. However, there are weaknesses in the economic situation, rule of law and the arena of bureaucracy.

The purpose of this study is to examine political crimes in and women?s political activity in 18th century Sweden. The cases of political crimes which has been used range from 1700- 1789 and they form an outline of the patterns of political crime in this century. These cases contain different types of political crimes, but most common ar defamation of the royal family, defamatory writings, rumor-spreading and treason. To study women?s political activity, seven cases ranging from 1749 to 1758 have been more closely studied.

When Deng Xiaoping introduced his reform program, he began China's transition from a plan economy to a socialist market economy. Liberal theorists often argue that there is an automatic link between ?free market? and ?democracy?, however this link is not evident in China. This contradiction constitutes the problem area of this thesis.With a theoretical framework containing ?totalitarism? and ?Tang Tsous culturalist approach? I have analysed the leadership of CCP (China's Communist Party) and its strategies to maintain the Chinese political system.

Since the war ended in Bosnia and Herzegovina in1995 the country's economic and political crisies has grown dramatically. As in so many other Post-communist states the corruption has become a large problem for the whole society. The ethnic entities in which Bosnia is divided makes it possible for the national parties to operate and rule the same political propaganda that was the result of the war in the first place. However the international forces like the EU and the USA have made this kind of no non-centralised governmentship possible through the Dayton peace agreement, according to many experts this has to change in the constitution by any means possible if Bosnia will have a future. By the thesis of Professor Susan Rose-Ackerman the theoretical analysing tool should be followed for the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Every now and then new political ideas appear which creates debate. A current example of political debate is the one which concerns the creation of a feminist political party in Sweden -Feministiskt initiativ. Apparent in the current debate is that there are two existing conflicts of ideas present. The liberal thought of politics of ideas stands against feminism's demand for presence in the political life. And the other, the conflict which concerns the question of where a line between the public and the private spheres should be drawn.

Local cultural environment planning in Sweden often comes to rely on municipal heritage plans. These plans are meant to facilitate management of local cultural values, work as a tool for local planning and increase awareness of cultural environments for the public. In the last decades public participation in planning has become more and more of the ideal strategy, challenging the idea of cultural environment planning as an expert-led field. The idea of the field as one that implicates public participation as a strategy has been fortified in Sweden through national goals, government bills and conventions. Nevertheless the implementation of public participation in municipal heritage plans remains quite uncharted. The aim of this study is to explore public participation in regards to how municipal heritage plans are developed and the perception of public participation in cultural environment planning amongst professionals, comparing bigger and smaller municipalities.

This paper examines difficulties that heirs to swedified sami persons experience when learning about how colonialism forced a lot of people to hide or dim their sami identity. The purpose is to examine what genealogy can mean for these people and how it differs from the ?regular? genealogy; what makes these heirs willing or not willing to call themselves sami and how the cultural traumas and family wounds can be understood as dark cultural heritage and how these can be resolved. With cultural heritage and history usage theories, Hall?s theories of hybrid identities, and Aarelaid-Tart?s trauma model, I have analysed material from six interviewees and some of my autoetnography to conclude that sami genealogy is an important factor in shaping a more complete and decolonized view of history and one?s identity, that descendants of samis won?t call themselves sami because of a lack of sami ?capital? but want to as a way of not letting colonialism win, and that cultural traumas and family wounds heal through talking about them ? not hiding from them. The dark heritage is a necessary part of the sami identity build. I have also concluded that sami identity have always been nuanced, there isn?t one correct way to be sami..

In this thesis I examine the development and expansion of judicial power in Sweden. The concept of judicial review is defined and related to democratic theory, and the various forms of judicial review in use in Sweden are explained. The main focus is on the political and scientific discussion concerning judicial review since the mid 1970s. It is shown that judicial review so far has been used only to a limited extent and that the number of court cases has remained quite stable over time. The main cause of judicialization seems to be the supremacy of EU law following the Swedish EU membership in 1995 and the inclusion of the European Convention on Human Rights into Swedish law.

Skilsmässor är vanliga i Sverige vilket innebär att samhället består av flertalet ensamstående mammor. Den allmänna uppfattningen i Sverige, före 1990-talet, var att ensamstående mammor inte skiljde sig så mycket från gifta mammor vad gäller försörjning och förvärvsarbete. Statistik från SCB (2009) visar dock att ensamstående småbarnsmammor ? ifall de förvärvsarbetar - jobbar fler timmar i genomsnitt än sammanboende småbarnsmammor. Syftet med denna studie var därför att undersöka ensamstående småbarnsmammors motivation till antal timmar i förvärvsarbete.

Webexhibits is a growing but unexplored, cultural phenomenon that indicates a new use of the Internet for cultural communication. In the essay two quantitative methods, logganalysis and websurveys, have been used to study the visitors in 5hus.nu. The purpose is to generate knowledge about webexhibits as a cultural manifestation and medium by studying the experience and actions of its visitors. To achieve the aim the paper explores the methodological questions of how to study webusers. Theories about the exhibition as a medium and the web as a virtual area of exhibits have been used to understand and interpret the results.

This article discusses desirable political representation within the framework of representative democracy. In the desirable representation it is the responsibility of the politician to balance authoritative decision making with responsiveness towards the voters. The article intends to make visible the ethical complexity within representative democracy. Ethically the commission to represent is further complicated because the political parties constitute a central role in the political life and request loyalty of the politician. At the same time the politician is elected by the voters and thus the representative has to balance the dual representation.The politician can meet supplementary but also contradictory norms of action in decision taking.

How can you do a right measurement of culture as well as with other social sectors and with what can culture contribute when it comes to a town´s development? We found out that in Linköping the regional federation Ostsam recently (2005) started mapping the region's creative centers in order to look into the spreading of the culture in the county, and then use the uniqueness of the culture as an advantage in society- planning contexts. The reason was that both municipal - and State directions detected that the culture has a broader importance when it comes to building up society and infrastructure than earlier considered. This is called Cultural planning and is the foundation- method that Östsam used when working with their new projekt The creative sector. The outcome of the Östsam study resulted in an exciting study basis to work further on with and to examine through own demarcations and directions.This research manages the matter of the creative sector as an extension to the cultural sector.

The purpose of this study is to investigate which types of cultural capital gives high status in the current field of ?the creative industry? ? a group which could be seen as a new power elite in Gothenburg ? and how people with the ?right? cultural capital is included in the field. The author is invited to several free events within this field, and is investigating the process of inclusion with an auto-ethnographic method. The study will show that the process of inclusion is working quite absolute in the field of the creative industry, and that the audiences are mainly homogenous: masculine, white, middle class, has a taste disposition of the ?eclectic omnivore?, has entrepreneurial knowledges and is an active social media agent.

Over the past few years the Åland islands have attracted growing internationalattention as an example of how to successfully secure the position of a minorityregion, and in the current situation the government of Åland has an intention toextend the efforts of spreading the example of Åland. The purpose of this essay isto shed light on the political discussion about the example of Åland, andinvestigate the underlying political reasons for emphasizing the example of Ålandinternationally. Through interviews with leading politicians on Åland I analyzeÅland as a norm entrepreneur. The research shows that besides altruism, selfinterestis a factor behind emphasizing the example of Åland. The essay showsthat the theory of norm entrepreneurship also can be applied on an autonomousarea, but instead of influencing international organizations themselves, theautonomous area use norm entrepreneurship as a tool for influencing domesticpolitics..

The focus of this study is the ways in which the discourses of the three largest right-wing populist parties in Scandinavia ? Danish Dansk Folkeparti, Norwegian Fremskrittspartiet and Swedish Sverigedemokraterna ? are articulated and on defining which individuals they include and exclude. The discourses of the three parties are compared and analyzed to determine whether they constitute specific nationalist and culturally racist discourses. The problem is addressed by applying a social constructivist theory of nationalism and cultural racism, and specifically the binary opposition ?we? and ?them?, on a material consisting of the respective parties? member magazines from 2007.