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.

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.

Projektet Prio Promotion har genomförts i Hässleholms kommun under en 4-6 månaders period, i syfte att stärka friskfaktorer på olika arbetsplatser. Projektet var riktat mot arbetsplatser med höga sjuktal, som hemtjänst, äldreboende, städpersonal samt förskolepersonal. Prio Promotion innefattade insatser i form av ergometercykeltest, föreläsningar angående fysisk aktivitet samt stress, stavgångs- och styrketräningsinstruktioner och en motionstävling. Denna rapport syftar till att göra en resultatutvärdering av Prio Promotion, med hjälp av resultat från enkäter och ergometercykeltest som gjordes både före och efter projektet. De c:a 134 insamlade enkäterna samt resultaten från ergometercykeltesterna fördes in och analyserades i SPSS 12.0.

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.

AbstractIn the beginning of 2007 the Swedish municipality Örebro decided to have a democraticexperiment, which ought to go under the name, ?Dialouge for the citizens?. Therepresentative elected politicians in Örebro tried to find ways to involve the people in theprocess of ruling. Why they choose to try this experiment on this very delicate matter, theclosure of several schools in the municipal, is one of the questions this essay is trying toanswer.The purpose of this essay is to find out whether the process was an attempt for the politiciansof the representative democracy to implement deliberative democracy in the structure of thelocal governance.The result of this study is that the politicians didn?t manage to reach to the citizens the waythey formerly had planned..

The purpose of this paper is to study the subject Islam and Democracy and see whatcommonalities exist between the two ideas and traditions of thoughts. The subject is topicaland often highlighted by the media in the West. The Islamic voices that we hear today iscertainly not democratic, given the violence and hatred carried out by Islamic extremistsagainst the West. The investigation of this paper have shown a different direction when thereare other voices such as those investigated reformist thinkers who argue that Islam has manydemocratic elements, and even that Islam is more suitable than democracy. According to thereformists ismodel of an Islamic state is democratic and legitimate.

The purpose of this essay was to analyze the collapse of democracy in the Weimar Republic. This was done by analyzing some of the most turbulent crises in its history like the communists attempt to take power in 1919, the kapp-putsch of 1920, hyperinflation 1923 and the economic depression 1929-1933. The method that I used in this essay is called methodological individualism. It was an analytical framework which helped to understand the citizens view on democracy and legitimacy. The theoretical framework was based on Juan J.Linz and Seymour Martin Lipsets ideas on legitimacy and efficacy.

The present state of politics in contemporary Venezuela portrays a country of polarization, a chase for power and accusations of authoritarian and even undemocratic rule. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the democracy in Venezuela, in order to clarify the sometimes vauge perception of the political situation. By applying the theories of polyarchical democracy put forth by Robert Dahl, one of the most highly regarded theorists on the subject, accordingly the discussion will therefore follow a theoretical framework. Dahl requires seven nstitutions to be guaranteed in a democracy, amongst them the possibility to vote, run for public office and the practise of freedom of speech. Measuring Dahl's levels of institutions in Venezuela, it is made clear that the level of democracy vary in different areas.

This Master Thesis aims to study and discuss the occurence of three concepts in some influential cultural policy documents which includes the UNESCO public library manifesto, the Swedish libraries act, the Swedish cultural policy objectives, and a study from the mid nineties which deals with the cultural policy. The questions asked are: -Do the documents mention democracy? In what way? -Do the documents mention the public sphere? In what way? -Do the documents mention information? In what way? -How can we understand the content of the documents through relevant theories about democracy, the public sphere and information? Theories about the information society are used, as well as theories from Jürgen Habermas, Herbert Schiller and Robert Dahl. The way of method is document studies and abduktion, with influences from hermeneutic theory. The analysis deals with the documents through these concepts: democracy, the public sphere and information and puts forward the content, or lack of content, about democracy in the analysed material.

In modern, Swedish political science there are different ways of looking at ?democracy?. A very common distinction is that between three groups of democratic theories: electoral democracy, participation democracy and deliberative democracy.The nowadays frequently used concept of electoral democracy is often used as synonymous with the older concept of repre­­­­sen­tative or indirect democracy ? frequently regarded as a contrast to the direct democracy of ancient Athens. However, there are also important differences.

The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon?s strengths and weaknesses.The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between citizens and politicians/officials.The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between citizens and politicians/officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust..

The purpose of this thesis is to study the level of democracy within the European Union (EU). To do so the following issues were examined: How the EU works and the efforts it has made to improve levels of democracy; and the degree to which the EU fulfils the criteria set by Robert Dahl in his theory of polyarchy.The study is based on a qualitative text analysis. The focus of the analysis is documents released by the EU that can be connected to democracy, and human and fundamental rights. The theory of polyarchy proposed by Robert Dahl and Joseph Schumpeter?s theory of democracy are the principal theories applied.

The aim of this study was to get a deeper understanding of how employees at NCC Construction Sverige AB experience health promotion activities. The purpose was to identify and uncover the process of meaning constitution concerning health promotion within each subjective individual. To achieve this deeper understanding the participants were asked to answer a carefully formulated phenomenological question in a self-report. The received reports where analysed according to the method of Meaning Constitution Analysis. The result showed that both office workers and construction workers exclusively refer health promotion to bodily functions even though there where some differences in type of activity they focused.

The aim of this study is to examine the fiction promoting role of public librarians through their fiction displays. The study covers three problems: What reasons do public librarians give for their selection of displayed fiction? How do public librarians view fiction displays in relation to other promotion strategies? How do public librarians think that promotion through fiction displays will evolve in the future?The results of the study have been analyzed using Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theory of how public librarians view their promotion of fiction. The concepts used are promotion due to public demand, actively recommending and informative promotion, and through dialogue. To account for the problems investigated in the study, eight librarians have been questioned through semi-structured interviews.

The aim of this study is to investigate wether the participatory democracy is a threat or a complement to the representative democracy. To achieve my purpose I will focus on two different lokal councils, the civil council in Hovsjö and the youth council in Västra Skogås, which have been objects of the urban policy in 1998. The theoretical framework on which this study is based consists of the participation democratic theory, representative democratic theory and implementation theory. By problemizing these theoretical frameworks in comparison with eachother I will mapp how these two lokal councils were implemented. The research question is: In what way was the civil council and the youth council a complement or threat to the representative democracy? In which way was it difficult to implement them?The method used for this purpose is a qualitative comparative case study.