What role does the state play in economic development? This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between a strong state and economic development. To define the concept of a strong state I focus on the relationship between the scope of state functions and the efficiency of which these functions are implemented. The concept of a strong state is in this thesis defined as the efficiency of the state functions. By using a database constructed by three economists; David Kaufman, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi as a measurement of a strong state I test the relationship with economic development empirically.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to study the companies approach to sustainability and to examine the relationship between the report content and the sustainability efforts businesses are making in practice.Method: The study has a qualitative perspective with semi-structured interviews and content analysis as method to collect data. Three companies were interviewed; Tekniska Verken AB, Apoteket AB and Max hamburgerrestauranger AB. The content analysis was used when collecting data from the three companies? sustainability reports.Frame of reference: Legitimacy theory, Stakeholder theory, Institutional theory, the Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility.Results: The result showed that all companies are prepared to work for sustainable development and that they view sustainability as an integrated part of their work. The sustainability report is the basis for sustainability reporting, which is a way for companies to demonstrate to their stakeholders what they stand for and what they implement in practice.

 Problem   Are there any abnormal changes in the parent company's share price at the news of a spin?off.ObjectiveThe main purpose of the study is to investigate how the news of a spin-off affects the parent company's share price. In other words if the news of the Spin-off gives an abnormal return on the Stockholm Stock Exchange during the specific period of 1998?2008. In addressing this, the paper will also investigate the following sub sections: are there any differences in the abnormal returns in various sectors and what the reasons to perform a spin?off in the Swedish market are.MethodAn event study in which market data is used to measure specific events? impact on the value of the company and on the effects on the stock market.

Denna rapport aterger arbetsprocessen kring att utvärdera geograskatjänster, och att utveckla karttillämpningar för nätverk av rikstäckande omfattning. Arbetet utfördes pa plats hos DGC, en datakommunikations-, tele- och nätoperatör som distribuerar kundförbindelser i hela Sverige där konsumenter ansluts till stamnätet. Uppgiften bestod av att utvärdera möjligheter till att slå upp koordinater för etablerade kundplatser, rita ut accessnätet i ett kartgränssnitt och ta fram ett eller flera stödverktyg för bland annat orderprocesser. Användningsfall utifrån önskemål, arkitekturmönster samt analys av yttre leverantörers tjänster för geocoding avgjorde hur det slutgiltiga systemet var utformat. Mjukvaran som utvecklades integrerades både i bentliga system och som ensamstående tillämpningar.

This essay is written in order to expose the construction of collective identity in textbooks for Swedish as a second language. To help visualize the process that shapes and categorize sub-jects based on a relational identity formation I assume mostly from Ernesto Laclau and Chan-tal Mouffe's discourse analysis theory frame. The paper called it as discourse theory. There are two textbooks in Swedish as a second language to be studied. Based on the textual materi-al found in the textbooks I perform a discourse analysis involving mainly focus on relational identity construction.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine librarians opinions about media. Four questions are asked: What kind of different attitudes to new media has librarians had? How is new media discussed in relationship to each other in the debate? What mechanisms and underlying causes control the discourse for new media in public libraries? Does the discourse change over time, in that case, how? The theoretical background is theory about moral- and media panic and popular adult education. The media panic theory includes the idea that the same reaction occurs every time a new media is introduced. The theory about popular adult education is that the public need to be cultivated.

Homeless adolescents are in Sweden rather invisible, as a group. There is no established definition or description of the problem, nor any uniform terms regarding it. The purpose of this study is to investigate how four different organizations, based on their basic principles, describe the group homeless adolescents. We discuss why the organizations reason as they do, and what it leads to. In order to do so we have performed qualitative interviews with representatives from each organization.

Utgångspunkten för rapporten är två snarlika teorier om hur begrepp är strukturerade; The Dual Theory och teorin om psykologisk essentialism. Teorierna säger att en egenskap som är definierande (eller åtminstone väldigt central) för ett begrepp har högre kausal status, alternativt, är perceptuellt identifierbar i en mindre grad, än en egenskap som endast är karakäristiskt för begreppet. En allmänt vedertagen uppfattning är att det är lättare att lära sig kunskaper och färdigheter som stämmer överens med de tidigare erfarenheter man har, än sånt som strider mot de erfarenheter man har sedan tidigare.I enlighet med detta antas i denna rapport att om teorierna stämmer så bör det vara lättare att lära sig skilja positiva instanser från negativa instanser av ett nytt (artificiellt) begrepp när begreppets struktur är förenligt (kongruent) med The Dual Theory och teorin om psykologisk essentialism, jämfört med när begreppets struktur är oförenligt (inkongruent) med teorierna. Två experiment med syfte att testa denna hypotes utfördes. Det första experimentet gav inga signifikanta resultat, vilket förklaras med inverkan av en störande variabel.

The purpose of this essay is to examine sfi (Swedish for immigrants), which is an ingrational-political tool with objective of teaching immigrants to read and write in Swedish. With the use of critical discourse analysis we examine the discursive practices within sfi. We also examine our methodological and theoretical approaches, and our application of them. Our research questions are as follows:? How are the discursive usage of ?person centered? and ?society centered? expressions being used?? How well does our methodological and theoretical resources work?In our theoretical viewpoint we use ?post colonial theory?, which is a perspective concerned with global power relations seen from a historical perspective.

Based on an analytical overview of post-Communist civil society development in Russia, the present thesis attempts a critical discussion of general civil society theory from the perspective of its relevance for the case study in question. The text consists of three closely interconnected, mutually reinforcing parts. In the first part, major issues of current civil society research are being thematically presented and discussed. The second part concerns itself with the case study as such. It is divided into two parts, one dealing with the relations between state and civil society in Russia, the other with civil society and the individual.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att öppna upp en diskussion kring frågan om huruvida ett företags pris- och outputstrategi och tillväxt påverkas av eller påverkar kapitalstrukturen i samma företag.Vi har utifrån en deduktiv ansats använt oss av både kvalitativ samt kvantitativ data.Vi har valt följande begrepp och teorier för att förklara sambanden mellan kapitalstruktur och strategi: Aggressiv och defensiv strategi, konservativ och offensiv strategi samt Limited liability, Predatory behaviour och Investment effect theory.Vi har genom kvantitativ data samlat in sekundärdata från respektive företags hemsida samt från deras årsredovisningar. Genom kvalitativa metoder har vi samlat in primärdata i form av telefonintervjuer.Våra resultat tyder på att det kan finnas ett samband mellan kapitalstrukturen och de aspekter av strategi som vi valt att undersöka. Dock kan vi inte dra några generella slutsatser då vår population är alltför liten. Vissa av de teorier som vi har byggt vår uppsats på behöver utvecklas för att passa på ett tillfredsställande sätt till detta problem..

This essay concerns the fantastic and its position in narration. The fantastic's defintion is based on Martin Horstkotte's defintion in The Postmodern Fantastic and the essay focuses on the noncontextual aspects such as the clash between two incompatible fictional worlds and the absence created. Instead of the ordinary identification of the established fictional world with realism and our reality it is suggested that both of the colliding fictional worlds are fictive and that the established one not necessarily need to be realistic. Exampels on how the fantastic takes place on the syntagmatic level in a narration is drawn from the short story ?Samvetets fantasi? by Clas Livijn when analysed with Peter Brooks' closurebased narratology theory in Reading for the Plot.

This thesis focuses on the perception of immigration and refugees in the commonEuropean refugee and immigration policy. It identifies different discourses andstudies their development and interrelated power structures.Using the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, documents from theEuropean Council, the Commission, the Justice and Home Affairs Council andParliament debates are analysed. The study is defined in the time span of 1999-2006, i.e. from the European Council's first agreement on developing a commonEuropean asylum system, following the period up till today.Four discourses are distinguished, focusing respectively on rights, security,European Union's needs, and cultural identity. I use Sandra Lavenex theory ofrealism and idealism to analyse one of the main points in the thesis: There is afundamental schism between the one rights-based discourse, focusing on universalhuman rights, and the three sharing a particularistic focus on immigration as asecurity concern.

The purpose of this study is to see what obstacles and opportunities the staff on a residence for unaccompanied children experience when trying to integrate these children into the Swedish society. I was also interested in how the integration of these children worked. I have interviewed the staff with a qualitative method. The result was analyzed with the help of Diaz integration theory and Bauman´s theory "us and them", and also with the previous research in the subject. My conclusion is that integration is a complicated concept that is experienced and interpreted individually. There are both obstacles and opportunities in the work with the integration of unaccompanied children. The result shows me that the schools? role and the legal guardians function should have been better planned and framed from the start.

Undersökningen syftade till att beskriva upplevelsen av sitt eget och andras sätt att konsumera. I relation till faktorer baserade på ?social identity theory? (Tajfel & Turner. 1979, refererat i Myers, 2007) men också egna individuella upplevelser om påverkan på det egna konsumtionssättet hos kvinnor i åldern 20-24 år. Strävan efter att uppnå en positiv social identitet och undvika en negativ social identitet upplevs påverka sättet att konsumera.