Malmö has often been described as a segregated city, with relatively low democratic participation and high poverty and alienation. Behind this kind of statements we often find a material reality, with unequal distribution of assets and potentials that needs to be taken into consideration for political action. At the same time this categorisation of people into different groups can take stigmatising effects and result in increased inequality.I find the theoretical basis for my thesis in Lefebvre?s writings on ?the right to the city?, that shortly means that all inhabitants of a city have the right to take active part in the constantly ongoing process of producing and reproducing the city ? on all levels, from a hands-on everyday life level to a more abstract political level.With an interdisciplinary approach, where the right to the city is discussed in relation to citizenship, presence, representation and public space, I try to understand the connections between democracy, participation, justice and equality. These discussions are then applied to examples from Malmö; both publically initiated projects and individual physical markings in the city.

According to law all Swedish authorities must express themselves using correct, plain and comprehensible language whenever they communicate with the citizens in order to make it easy to understand what needs to be known to participate in the Swedish democratic society. I would like to explore if there are more tools than the language that could be used to make their communication easier to comprehend, in this case images and stories. In this essay I will investigate the relationship between the written words and the visual components ? images and illustrations ? in brochures from Swedish authorities. I will also try to identify possible narratives in the brochures, and examine the functions of these narratives.

AbstractOil rich states all over the world share a common feature. They are less likely than other states, depending on other resources, to be ruled democratically. In this essay Saudi Arabia has been studied with the purpose of trying to find which mechanisms that lie behind why oil rich states do not have institutions or institutional change that promotes democracy.Saudi Arabia has the world's largest known reservoir of oil. The oil brings huge revenue each year to the Saudi Arabian government. Why have Saudi Arabia not developed democratically when their economic growth suggests that to be a natural step? Under the framework of historical institutionalism and path dependency theory, I have used process tracing trying to track the mechanisms behind Saudi Arabia's authoritarian rule down.

The use of alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco have all long been considered health hazards, especially among children and teenagers. It is therefor not surprising to find that schools have promoted against the use of these substances in different preventative programs for many decades, and the Swedish school system is no exception. However, the use of, as well as the laws restricting alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco are, and have historically been, highly political issues. Individuals, groups, institutions, and states may all have different opinions on how these substances should be regulated and of their place in society, which in turn may lead to conflicts of values and different approaches. One can not expect parents or guardians to share the views on alcohol, narcotics, and tobacco policy presented by schools, laws or state regulations.

AbstractTitle: Similar but different ? Sweden Democrats and Swedish Social Democratic Party in Swedish newspapers online during 2010 (Lika men olika ? Sverigedemokraterna och Socialdemokraterna i svensk rikspress på nätet 2010).Number of pages: 35 (40 including enclosures)Author: Magnus MjöhagenTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication studies CPeriod: Autumn 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/aim: To discover any possible difference between the media report concerning The Sweden Democrats and the Swedish Social Democratic Party in Swedish news press.Material/method: A quantitative content analysis has been made with 64 articles from the homepages of the four biggest news papers in Sweden: Aftonbladet.se, Expressen.se, DN.se (Dagens Nyheter) and SvD.se (Svenska Dagbladet). The analysis focused on four themes: 1) framing in the articles, 2) impersonation in the articles, 3) the democratic task of journalism and 4) the expectations of journalism in an election campaign.Main results: The main results showed that the difference between the two parties either was nonexistent or very small. The articles were sometimes framed in specific ways, but a big amount of the articles were not framed. Impersonation occurred in about half of the cases, concerning both parties.

 Euro barometer surveys show quite an astonishing change in Turkish opinion towards European Union. In 2004, 73 % of the population considered EU as a good thing. In 2008, only 49 % were of the same opinion. At the same time, skepticism towards European integration is explained differently in earlier research. Some scholars claim that partisanship may explain attitudes of citizens better than ?cost and benefit? approaches.

In todays society the legal rights of the individual are a highly debated subject. Among other things there have been a debate going on in Dagens industri where the participants have discussed the National Tax Board, courts of law and law and order. The legal rights of the individual have been described as threatened and uncertain due to deficiencies in the tax assessment.There are difficulties defining the concept of law and order due to the fact that there is no generally acknowledged explanation. The concept of law and order originates from the citizens ability to predict the consequences of their actions provided that the authorities actions are regulated according to current legislation and will therefore protect the citizens from possible abuse of power that can exist within a state governed by the law.The purpose of this paper is to analyse law and order within the tax assessment through a method that experiments with real and imagined situations with the main purpose of interpreting current legislation. The paper collects essential legislation, preparatory work together with established practice and supplements the method with information from articles, dissertations and the National Tax Authority?s documented directions within the tax assessment.Through juridical argumentation concerning areas, such as legal rights essential to the citizens and the tax assessment, the paper results in aspects essential to the individual involved in tax dispute.

ABSTRACTCitizendialogue in the District of RasboA Case Study in the Municipality of UppsalaAuthor: Camilla ÖstlundSupervisor: Stig MontinThe essay is written inside the scope of Örebro Universitys evaluation of the new organisation in the municipality of Uppsala.The purpose of this essay is to study the citizendialogue in the district of Rasbo. This will be done partly by an examination of how the participants themselvesperceive citizendialogue. Their descriptions are put in relation to deliberative democracy and its critics amongst other. Partly by study how those involved have choosen to put it into practice. The opponents of the reorganization chose to start a non-profit association, Rasbo in co-operation, to carry on local mobilization and it will be compared with other similar groups.

The aim of this study is to examine the democratization process of Kosovo in the years after the countries independence was assured. Two central questions for the case study consist of whether a democratic improvement in the country has occurred and which factors, positive and negative, are present to further improve or impede the democratizationprocess. The study builds upon two central definitions, democratic states and democratization in order to gain theoretical background to be able to measure these two quite abstract expressions. A socioeconomic model is used to measure favorable or negative developments within Kosovos society and the findings of this model confirms the hypothesis of modernization theory, namely that increased socioeconomic development increases the chance of a positive democratizationprocess. There has been a positive democratic development aswell as socioecomic progress but since the nature of this study is merely descriptive and not explanatory, it doesnt make claims on the explanatory power of modernization theory.

The purpose of my study is to gain insight into how the education system (particularly social studies) is morally-minded based on the governing documents, former students and a textbook. I wanted to find out what morally-minded means and if it has a big role in social studies. Through interviews with former high school students (when my thesis is aimed at high school) I wanted to find out how they felt their social studies were educational and which the values that they had taken on from the lessons. I also chose to analyze a textbook to get a broader understanding of how the morally-minded education is written in specific areas relating to social studies. My study is a qualitative study and what I came up with is that the former students consider their social studies teaching lacked to some degree when it came to the morally-minded education. My investigation concludes that the morally-minded education is important in social studies as the purpose of social studies is to promote active Democratic citizens.

The EU guarantees the free movement of persons. The citizens of the EU Member States have the right to move freely without barriers within the EU borders and this result in an integration of the peoples in Europe. The integration result in several international family relationships. It is not unusual in the present situation that families have international relations. For example, spouses in a married couple may have different nationality.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to through a theoretical analyze, investigate the conditions and the challenges for a consolidated democracy in Egypt from 1952 until after the revolution of 2011. The central question in this thesis is what opportunities and challenges are there for the democratic consolidation in Egypt, with respect to civic, political and economic conditions. How have the conditions developed between 1952 and 2011? How has the transition government/military government handled the central problems in the transitions phase after 2011? The theory used in this analysis is Linz and Stepans famous five arenas (the political society, the economic society, the civil society, the bureaucracy and the state of rule, whit focus on the three first). Through a qualitative case study we have analyzed the conditions in Egypt from 1952 to after the revolution 2011.The empirical material shows that the arenas in Egypt are both historically and current very weak, and they are not supporting democratic consolidation as they are challenged by several enormous problems.

This investigation aimed to shed light on the terms of the dispensing and the retaining of municipal social benefits granted by Swedish social services, this in regard of a less visible societal subgroup; citizens who cannot attain or retain housing of their own.Through qualitative interviews with six municipal social workers in Skåne, the plight of these citizens is revealed from a policy-making perspective in respect of views on discretion and individual appreciation. How may the applicant impact the application process and how does social subletting operate as a service effort?Further analysis of the accounts of informants? views on change and the reasons for change, sketched an image of a society where public acceptance and tolerance are crucial factors for citizens hoping to achieve a homestead through means of municipal intervention.In conclusion, flexible attitudes towards job description are of major import to the possibility of offering client support in under-staffed municipal environs. Furthermore, reflexive social workers allying with the applicant throughout the process, from application to intervention are decisive for efficacious, long-term social work..

The public administration and its officials have a number of values which they have to relate to in their work. The values are a set of democratic and economic values.This study?s purpose is to examine how the officials at the National Insurance Office in Sweden give priority to these values. The study is performed by interviews with officials at two insurance offices.The study shows that the officials in a high degree value the democratic values legal security and public ethics. In turn they experience that productivity, which is an economic value, is being promoted in a high degree from the management.

The communication with government and municipality through Internet has in-creased during the last couple of years. Therefore we have chosen to focus our bachelor thesis in this particularly area and the needs for usable web services for the citizens. In this bachelor thesis we are studying a increasing group users, namely elderly citizens. During the study we have analysed E-governments ser-vices usability through usability tests. The combination of conversations and meetings with individuals, observations of interactions and literature studies give us the opportunity to explore the users needs.