It has become popular for political scientists to discuss the transformation from government to governance and the networks? greater influence on public policymaking. However, this debate lacks methodological, empirical and theoretical research about the relationship between governance networks and representative democracy. The main objective of this essay is to understand the relationship between governance networks and representative democracy through a case study of the governance network Leader Linné. The theoretical framework includes four analysis models about the relationship between governance networks and representative democracy that are analysed by five factors connected to representative democracy.

This essay examines a presupposed correlation between the way one look upon values and the way one look upon the will of the people in a theoretical democratic context. The more specific purpose is to test the following hypothesis: There is a reversed connection between the way one look upon values and the way one look upon the will of the people in a theoretical democratic context, that is; a strong claim of values give reason to a limited conception of the will of the people and a weak claim of values gives reason for a more unlimited conception of the will of the people.In order to test the hypothesis I examine three different conceptions of democracy, these are: pluralist democracy, deliberative democracy and constitutional democracy. I analyze the way they look upon values, there view of the will of the people and finally if there is a connection between the way they look upon values and the will of the people. Values should be understood in a metaethical context. In other words it is not values in the ?common? meaning, instead its how val-ues in them selves should be understood, and even more relevant, what we mean when we ex-press values.My conclusions are, first and foremost, that there is a correlation between the will of the people and values, according to the formulation of the hypothesis.

The purpose with this examination task is to investigate what purchasers and building contractors think of ISO 9000 and the function of it within the building trade.In this material both the purchaser´s and the building contractor´s viewpoints and attitude towards ISO 9000 is being object to an investigation, in order to get a just picture of the function of the quality work within the building trade. The general opinion of ISO 9000 has proven to be positive. During the work with this investigation it appeared that nosystem is that good that it can´t be improved. A widely spread opinion is also that ISO 9000 means a lot of paperwork but also that the certified companies are well organized. Above all the majority demands a standard that is more adjusted to the building trade..

Through qualitative interviews with six teachers at a school an understanding of teachers´ conceptions of, and conditions for their work on pupil democracy and student participation are sought.Formulation of questions were as follow:What does pupil democracy and pupil influence mean for selected teachers?How do selected teachers´ work with pupil democracy and pupil influence?What opportunities and complicatedness?s do selected teachers see with this work?Through this the selected teachers views on children and their thoughts on their role as a leader also are investigated.According to the curriculum the Swedish school should aim to transmit primary democratic values and pursue the education through democratic work models. Further the pupil should acquire influence of their education. The theory exposes several approaches on democracy and influence. These approaches are further on applied on the school.The result of the study evinces that selected teachers´ practice both pupil democracy and pupil influence.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Martti Ahtisaari?s comprehensive reportfor Kosovo, CPS, based on theories about democracy, democratization andmulticulturalism. The essay is a way to make a contribution to research on howthe international community can contribute to democratization processes ingeneral, as the CPS gives the expression and democratization of contextscharacterized by multicultural problems in particular. In this paper, we implementa qualitative text analysis of our main material CPS. The qualitative text analysiscan be applied in studies as ours when sought contents of the text are hidden underthe surface.

This study has investigated how urban vegetation can be used in a multifunctional way to support ecosystem services in urban environments. Nacka municipality is in the start-up phase of building what is to become Nacka city. This provides a unique possibility to study and analyse what role the vegetation play in making the city a healthy living environment and how it needs to be adapted in order to be resilient against changing climate conditions and how the effects of those changes can be regulated. The study further investigates how airborne pollution, caused by urbanization processes, can be regulated or reduced by vegetation or species selection. Methods used in this study were a combination of qualitative interviews and literature studies, seeking to answer the questions: Which specific ecosystem functions are needed in the urban environment and which aspects will influence the ecosystems ability to deliver the functions in demand? And which plant species have the right mechanisms needed to deliver those functions? These questions have been studied and analysed in a local based context where the local conditions ands site specific needs of Nacka define criteria for plant selection.

On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

How the United States anti-terrorist strategy is affecting the view of democracy is the main analysis of this paper. The mechanisms that affect the idea of democracy have been studied on the basis of the philosopher Michael Foucault?s thoughts and the main direction in French discourse analysis. The study is restricted to the period between the 11th of September 2001 and today. Information has been collected entirely from the White House?s website http://www.whitehouse.gov, including speeches, conferences and reports.

Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

In the present case, the conception of policy hitchhiking gets evaluated in terms of its implications for democracy. This task is executed through the accomplishment of a case study of the use of social- and environmental clauses in the Swedish competitive tendering.A useful definition of policy hitchhiking, including different types of actors, is created.Through the defining of democracy and policy hitchhiking, the author comes to the conclusion that policy hitchhiking in some respects does meet democracy values.The thesis? result can in some sense be regarded as a contribution to the pursuit of knowledge of how power is distributed in the society and how the current distribution can be explained and understood..

This study is about youths, democracy and school. It seeks to describe and problemize the school's role in the democratic society. Firstly, using Social Representations Theory, 44 upper secondary shool pupils? representations, or conceptions, of democracy are described and discussed. These representations are then analyzed in relation to the school's role in the democratic society, as it is described by different researchers.The results show that many of the youths have a rather simplistic and abstract view of democracy, describing it only in terms of general principles and the main features of the representative democracy, such as voting in national elections.

Since a couple of decades the community of Jönköping has worked out an urban vision of how the city should be appropriated expanded. The prospect extends to around year 2040 and deals with the area south of lake Munksjön in Jönköping, Sweden. Today there is a proposal of how this would look like and what main public functions that should be located there. One issue in the so-called urban vision 2.0 indicates a congressional building. This report describes how such an object can be designed according to the urban vision conditions.The work is focused on three main themes;* Architectural concept and a modern form of expression.* A functional attractive congress building in a new planned town centre.* General concept of a realistic structure system that meet the spatial and architectural possibilities.Various concepts in the meeting industry and in the architecture field are identified in order to understand the concepts and ideas with today´s congress buildings.

Stenebergs sockerbruk is a large log-timber construction, purpose built as a sugar refinery in 1739 and is one of Sweden's oldest industrial buildings constructed entirely out of wood. Despite receiving the status of a listed building (in Swedish: Byggnadsminne) in 1977, there exists today a surprisingly low amount of documentation of the building itself. In order to enhance the existing and lacking building documentation, this case study aims to shed light on the building's log-timber built frame, focusing on how it was constructed, how the long lengths of its walls were handled and what type of joinery and tools were used. A thorough investigation of the building is conducted on site, followed by gathering of information which is then presented through text and illustrations. The findings indicate the orientation of timbers, location of joints and scarfs as well as tool marks which together contribute to the forming of a basis of understanding of the building's construction..

Democracy is said to uphold the dearest values and be the most moral system. But it cannot be characterized as a rigid "syste" but a continuously changing political framework, under which aims and values can be fulfilled - and replaced.The increasingly diverse and ever-changing environment of contemporary democracies forces change upon the systems' natural evolution, which makes their future features uncertain and unforeseeable. A powerful change-force doctrine does however claim change is mainly (or merely) caused by the power of ideas; the elite power over ideas can thus provide a natural foundation for the analysis of the direction of development for democracy. This study aims to provide such a foundation by reconstructing empirical and normative descriptions of democracy at two certain points in time, following extensive government studies.As a tool for analysis, this study identifies values of substantial and procedural character central to democracy theory and discourse. It further creates ideal types of democracy based on these values, to which the nature of democracy is measured.

Political disenchantment and detachment is proven to be growing in well established democracies. This development brings along concerning behavior regarding general political participation. Fewer citizens participate in elections, parties are losing members, and the trust in politicians is steadily decreasing. IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance) has been registering voter turnout worldwide for the last 60 years and their publications show a decline in voter participation since the 1980s.During the same period of time another development has caught attention, namely the fast progress of the medium Internet. The new generation of Internet functions is called Web 2.0 and allows users not only to create content, but also to interact with each other.This dissertation aims to explore the possibilities emerging when integrating Web 2.0 in political processes.