What impact and effects are created by the placement of an international ranking? Could it be that a top rank is detrimental to an entire country's efforts to fight corruption?This bachelor thesis in political science is about Swedish corruption. In essence, so questioning the Transparency International's indexed rankings that placed Sweden in third place. Issues concern since if the third placement has created nonchalance and a careless mentality in Swedish government and in particular in the municipal operations. Research results show that Transparency International's rankings have low validity and low reliability and that the government is not acting sufficiently to prevent and fight corruption.

What attribute affects salience on a political agenda? How come some reforms are implemented while others are not? These are essential and central questions for our society. Our society, our democracy and our everyday life are dependent of these factors; communication is the condition. In the 2011 budget from the Swedish conservative government, the question of lowering the VAT on restaurant- and catering services was the single most debated reform. This was occasioned from 2009 when the European Union allowed, for the first time since Swedish entry in 2005, a lower VAT on restaurant services.

Agencies towards Sustainable Development ? A Study of Environmental Management Systems in Governmental Agencies 2005A vision of the Swedish government is to build an ecologically sustainable society. A tool in this effort is to implement environmental management systems (EMS). The aim of the thesis is to present in which phase of the implementation of EMS Swedish governmental agencies are. This will be done by compilation and evaluation of agencies? yearly environmental reports.The thesis is written in co-operation with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA).

The name of the study means ?The short arm - a study in diversity and arm?s length in the cultural collaboration model?. Right now there is a reform in the Swedish cultural administration where the responsibility for handing out state funds and grants to cultural organizations is changing from the state government to the local regional governments. The purpose of this study is to map the organisational changes caused by the reform and investigate how this affects the regional policies concerning cultural diversity and the arm?s length principle.

The study aims to give a description of the conditions in which matters is prepared withinSwedish Government`s offices, to describe the adaptive capacity in the agency`s internalprocesses by investigating the experiences of some civil servants restricted to the Ministry ofEnterprise and the Ministry of Environment in their work with the EU Maritime Policy GreenPaper. The results have been analyzed against the basis of eight identified criteria of buildingadaptive capacity in socially dominated systems. The criteria are comprised of both individualand organizational abilities. Only two of them were fully met; the criteria about diversity inexperiences and knowledge and the criteria about information and how the information hasbeen applied. However, the process has traces of all the identified criteria.

Trafficking in human beings and prostitution is an increasing occurrence within the EU. However, vast differences in legal frameworks regarding prostitution can be detected among member states.The Netherlands is an example where prostitution is regarded a legal activity. In other member states legal standings toward prostitution remain ambivalent, where Sweden here serves an example. Finally, Lithuania is among member states where prostitution is considered illegal.The purpose of this paper is therefore to study underlying attitudes and approaches that these three countries have in this rather delicate political question. By interpreting the content and quoting parts of propositions, an ideology analysis is constructed.The theory chapter consists of Rousseau?s theories, Objectivism, Radical Feminist Theory, and Sex-positive Feminist Theory.

?During the past few years cooperation between the EU member states has expanded considerably in areas such as justice and homeland affairs. International cooperation in criminal justice has become more important as borders between EU countries has been lifted and because of this, various criminal groups have also had more opportunities to commit crimes cross borders. The Italian mafia groups in particularly have been operating in almost every country in Europe and have exploited the possibilities offered by the EU. The increase of organized crime in Europe has created a demand for EU to step up their actions against the organized crime.The purpose of this essay is to investigate exactly how the significant EU is has been in battling organized crime in Italy.

The major focus in this study is structural inequalities in primary school in Sweden. UNESCO points out that in many developing countries, up to 40% of the children perform at or below the lowest proficiency level in language and mathematics. Sweden has been criticized by the UN about the large differences in educational achievements between different regions. Based on an official study Sweden considers that those differences are related to ethnically segregate residential areas. My research question is whether the Swedish government takes adequate consideration of the impact that socioeconomically aspects have on educational achievement.

erspective [80][upps-01.gif] This is a thesis on the Swedish Public Lending Right PLR, from a historical perspective. Some of the questions which are investigated in this thesis are: why did the State decide to introduce a PLR and why did it take about 20 years to make the decision? The question why the PLR was not introduced on a copyright basis is also discussed. The focus of this study is during the period of 1934-1956 and it is a literature-study. Mainly there are four reports made by different committees that have been examined.

The government procurement legislation ? i.e. the Swedish procurement law, the EC procurement directives and the WTO?s Government Procurement Agreement ? applies on public procurement. Such a procurement exists when the contractor meets the conditions stated in the directives that the organ is to be considered as a contracting auhtority.

Aim: This paper aims to produce a serviced office concept adjusted to Statens fastighetsverk. The concept will make SFV:s properties more attractive for renting. Method: Information has been collected from interviews with 13 different serviced office companies, one serviced office agent and eleven government authorities. Also litterateur, reports and internet have been used in gathering information.I will use following questions:¨      How is the serviced office concept designed?¨      Which customer segment should SFV direct to and what need does the segment have?¨      How shall a marketing plan look like for the concept?¨      How should a concept designed for SFV look like? Result & Conclusions: Serviced office space is a company that letting functional workspace with access to shared facilities e.g. reception, office machines, internet, phone and more.

This thesis deals with the concept of how price affects demand for a good by estimating various price elasticities of demand for snu sold in Sweden. Information was gathered on price development for snus and cigarettes as well as sales data from Swedish Match, the largest supplier of snus in Sweden. Income-, price- and cross-price elasticities were estimated based on log-log regression. Results show that snus is an inelastic good since the coefficient for price of snus was -0.536. This proved that a 1% increase in price causes a 0.536% decrease in quantity demanded.

The aim of this thesis has been to analyze and interpret several different discourses in Japan and from the findings see how the Ainu people and their existence in Japan have been defined in today's Japan and in who's interest it is to keep it this way. My findings was that the Japanese nation in all channels of society are reinforcing and perpetuating the belief that it constitutes an ethnically homogenous nation and that there exists no ethnic problems in the country. I found that schoolbooks don?t give adequate information about the Ainu people and its history, and the Japanese press is reinforcing the status quo by their selective silence and limited coverage on issues concerning the Ainu. The government has defined and legitimized the problem of Ainu within the framework of culture and tradition.

AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

Moldova is one of Europe?s poorest countries with a struggling business environment and an unpredictable political situation. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the implications of corruptions and why networks have come to play a key role in the Moldovan culture and if the formations of network are due to heritage or an effect of functionalism. The focus of the study is also to explain how the networks develop and the formation and maintenance of loyalty and trust among the members of the network. The study is of a qualitative nature that uses a key informant sampling method to get access to members of different business networks.