This thesis is an attempt to shed light on how the authors of the Swedish Government Official Report, SoU 1999:83, speak about how the globalization affects democracy. The method used is critical discourse analysis and ideological analysis, with the main emphasis on the former. The results of the analysis are then interpreted with central parts of Jürgen Habermas? The theory of communicative action. One of the main conclusions is that an absolute majority of the authors, talk about how the globalization affects democracy in terms of the economic market and the European union.

Abstract: The purpose with this study is to analyse the political debate about freedom of speech in Sweden and Denmark, after the caricatures of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed that the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten published in September 2005. For this debate four political parties have been chosen. These are: Socialdemokratiska Partiet and Moderata Samlingspartiet in Sweden and Socialdemokraterne and Venstre in Denmark.An idea analysis has been chosen as method, and dimensions as an analysing tool. The overall result of the analysis is that right- and left political parties in Sweden and Denmark are more alike, than different in their political debate about free speech. They all wish for total freedom of speech, and see that as the foundation of the democratic society.

This thesis analyzes the media debates generated by the election of Omar Mustafa to the board of the social democratic party, and the appointment of the conservative Minister of Labour, Elisabeth Svantesson. More specifically, the aim is to analyze newspaper material through a discourse analyze, to see if and how religious affiliation effects the possibilities to act as a political representative. Theories of othering and intersectionality serve as theoretical points of departure. Further, chains of equivalence from Laclau and Mouffe?s discourse theory are used to study how categories as ?us? and ?the other? are constructed in the material, and how these processes of categorization relate to the intersection of religion, gender and ethnicity.

The Swedish public inquiries and most of the political science advocate reforms in the spirit of participatory democracy to strengthen the democracy. Although it is striking how limited and narrow the scientific documentation is in analysing the effects of participatory democratic reforms. Still, many of the local governments in Sweden are reshaping their organisations according to the participatory democracy model. Is it a trend and a symbolic action or a veritable action of good-will of the politicians?The paper argues that the idea of participatory democracy has become popular and widely spread.

This essay captures the process toward a democratic transition in South Africa and tempts on analyzing the efforts made by civil society before the negotiation with the government in the beginning of the 90´s. The method used is a case study.By applying the theory of Elisabeth Jean Wood about the importance of continued mobilization, I try to answer the question: to what extend did civil society influence the democratization process. The focus of the study lies on the years of intensified popular mobilization, from the start of the 80´s until the beginning of the 90´s.The results following this study shows that COSATU, Congress of South African Trade Unions) and ANC(African National Congress) played both a crucial role for the democratization process in South Africa. UDF, however played a role in the process, but not in the same significant way that COSATU and ANC..

Citizenship information is defined as the information the citizen needs to be able to take part in and influence the society. Since it is a democratic issue that information concerning the citizens role in society really reaches the citizens, it is of importance to study how the citizens proceed when they have a need for this information. The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how our eight informers proceed when they experience this need in a non-work situation. We performed qualitative interviews. The most important part of our interviews was the introduction of some fictitious problems to the informants.

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 objective of this undergraduate thesis is to study the Swedish Social Democatic Party?s standpoint of the law allowing asylum seekers to choose where to live (ebo) between 1994-2009. The study?s empirical material is being based on official documents from the Swedish Parliament, which is being analyzed by a method called ?process-tracing?. A research question has been formulated to supplement the objective:What arguments has the Swedish Social Democratic Party expressed pro and con the law of ?ebo?? The study?s theoretical framwork is based on two theories which explain incentives behind parties? decision-making, strategic or ideological, on three arenas. As the law was ratified the party took a positive standpoint, but later shifted to become stricly against it.

Liberal theorists typically argue that state action should not favor any particular conception of the good or meaningful life. On this view the defining characteristic of the liberal state is neutrality among rivaling ideas of the good. This thesis argues that state neutrality is impossible to maintain in practice. Two different versions of state neutrality; neutral justification and neutral aims, are used to analyze a wide range of political issues. It is concluded that far from being neutral, the liberal state favors individualistic and market oriented conceptions of the good life.

Before the general election 2006 all of the Swedish parties represented in the Parliament held their political party conference. At each political party conference, the leader for respectively party held their opening speech, a speech that was covered by the press. This essay deals with how the press covers these speeches. Analysing how the different speeches were covered by the press, some tendencies regarding how the press report could be visualised. In this comparison the ?quantitative content analysis? was used.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate how the Swedish media framed the political party, the Swedish Democrats, two weeks prior to the election of parliament in 2014. This essay starts with the historical background of the political party, the Swedish Democrats, and continues with the theoretical framework for the essay. The theoretical framework consists of three theories: framing, media logic and media?s role in the democratic society. The essay?s main problem is presented as the question: What media image was there of the Swedish Democrats before the election of parliament in 2014? The main problem is answered by using a quantitative content analysis on the essay?s empirical material, 68 news articles from four Swedish daily newspapers.

This essay is a qualitative study concerned with questions about disability. I set out from a definition of disability which highlights non-disabled peoples´ participation in making a disabled person ?the Other?. My aim is to contribute to an understanding of the experiences of disabled people as well as problemize the way that normality and disability is socially constructed. The empirical material of the essay consists of qualitative interviews with disabled men and women and the essay is written with a critical perspective.

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The study shows how seven informants, all studying at a university in northern Sweden to become art teachers, perceive and relate to controversial contemporary art in the context of secondary school art education. The study is based on semi-structured interviews. The study contributes to a nuanced view of these informants opinions and thoughts regarding provocative contemporary art, in relation to the school's democratic values ??and founding mission. The seven informants' responses were compiled thematically linked to the study's purpose and issues to allow for comparisons and analysis.

The purpose of the essay is to investigate how the position of women and girls in society can lead to a valid infringement of the right to privacy (art. 8 ECHR) by allowing the storage of personal data belonging to people who have not been convicted of a crime. The essay uses the traditional legal method to determine the applicable law, but is also grounded in a feminist approach in order to enable an interaction between jurisprudence and societal phenomena. The essay revolves around Directive 2016/680 and relevant case law in order to analyze the set requirements to enable an infringement of the right to privacy. In order to be able to analyze whether the requirements can be met based on the need to prevent men?s violence against women and girls, the essay will also describe the life situations of women and girls in society. The essay argues that the conditions at hand fall under art.