Dissertation in political science, D-level by Niklas Andersson, Spring Semester 2010. Tutor: Malin Stegmann McCallion?Societies in Crisis ? When Washington Take Over?An economic meltdown wreaks havoc on the world and has plunged the Western world into a spiral of economic stimulus in order to keep their way of life intact. At the same time the same institutions that support these countries have had another agenda for more unfortunate and less influential countries where nothing has been free and everything been to a price of self-sacrifice in order to get the consent of the IMF and the World Bank. Everything according to the points stated in the so called Washington Consensus.The purpose of this dissertation is to research what impact the Washington Consensus has on the state in terms of power over the market and sovereignty.

There are three main purposes for this thesis; the first is to distinguish the possible violations that can occur in time of natural disasters. The second is to analyze if there is a correlation between political systems and how the effected country handles the aftermath of a natural disaster. The third purpose is to determine the role of the global community and what responsibility lies with them. The issue is often that the aid becomes the main object for discussion and analysis, but the focus rarely shifts to the effected State. Therefore the focus in this essay is the political system and how they cope with the human rights violations that can occur in a time of natural disaster.

The prevailing food and energy crisis of the world, due to the declining reserves of fossil energy and a never ending rise of consumption, forces us to look into new fields to supply our energy demand. The boom of bio energy is criticized, as food crops are used to provide biodiesel and ethanol and the volumes are ridiculously small to supply world demand. Algae are one of the world?s oldest life forms and exist in many different phyla, providing a great variety to choose from, for different purposes. Cultivating microalgae offer a way to produce energy at great volumes without competing with food production and at the same time the algae offer a way to use our expensive nutrients in a more efficient way, besides this the algae are carbon dioxide neutral since their carbon source can be supplied by the atmosphere and the additional energy required can be supplied by algal oil or other renewable sources.

Sedan införandet av euro som gemensam valuta har interna obalanser inom euroområdet växt sig starkare till följd av reala apprecieringar i speciellt Portugal, Irland, Italien, Grekland och Spanien. Detta har lett till att ländernas internationella konkurrenskraft försvagats. För att få bukt med de interna obalanserna krävs det att länderna återfår sin internationella konkurrenskraft, deras varor måste bli billigare i jämförelse med deras handelspartner. Detta kan komma till stånd genom reala deprecieringar. Hösten 2008 drabbades världen av den djupaste ekonomiska nedgången sedan andra världskriget, något som förvärrade situationen för de krisande euroländerna.Uppsatsen belyser de interna obalanserna inom euroområdet och diskuterar teoretiskt på vilka sätt länderna kan få stånd till reala deprecieringar när det inte finns någon växelkurs att ändra mot de andra euroländerna.

The subject for this paper is the Class Action against Skandia Association, a civil organization formed in 2003 with the aim of claiming compensation for some 1.2 million life insurance customers. The background to its formation was one of the largest financial scandals in Sweden in recent times, involving a number of questionable affairs within the insurance corporation Skandia and its subsidiaries, most notably the life insurance company Skandia Liv. The interests of both the stake- and stockholders of the company seem, in certain ways, to have been grossly misrepresented. The scandal, as well as the reaction it spawned, pose a number of questions. In this study, we focus on two: a possible, and in many ways apparent crisis in the representation of interests in Swedish society, and the role of civil society in upholding the balance between these interests.We argue that what is often held to be the ?greed? or ?immorality? of individuals in scandals such as Skandia is, to a great extent, a mere reflection of the ?rational? underpinnings of modern-day capitalism.We find that trust has been a key mechanism of control in the relationships between consumers and agents in pension and life insurance markets, and that ?the Swedish model? that distinguished post-WWII Swedish society was a model heavily based on trust towards existing models of bureaucratic governance.

Sedan införandet av euro som gemensam valuta har interna obalanser inom euroområdet växt sig starkare till följd av reala apprecieringar i speciellt Portugal, Irland, Italien, Grekland och Spanien. Detta har lett till att ländernas internationella konkurrenskraft försvagats. För att få bukt med de interna obalanserna krävs det att länderna återfår sin internationella konkurrenskraft, deras varor måste bli billigare i jämförelse med deras handelspartner. Detta kan komma till stånd genom reala deprecieringar. Hösten 2008 drabbades världen av den djupaste ekonomiska nedgången sedan andra världskriget, något som förvärrade situationen för de krisande euroländerna.Uppsatsen belyser de interna obalanserna inom euroområdet och diskuterar teoretiskt på vilka sätt länderna kan få stånd till reala deprecieringar när det inte finns någon växelkurs att ändra mot de andra euroländerna.

This thesis in Educational Sciences consists of a narrative ideology-analysis of the Swedish school's fundamental values with perspectives from the philosophy of Nietzsche and Kant, which also analyzed the same way, with the aim to trace and problematize the ideological foundations of "our society's shared values" that teachers should convey to the students. Based on a theory that a humanism crisis occurs when important values are perceived as threatened, does the introduction of the basic values of the curriculum appear as a response tosocietal changes. Nietzsche and Kant represent completely different idea currents that both have been reflected in the curriculum in which basic values have different meanings. Nietzsche has inspired social criticism, postcolonial and postmodern thinkers to a critical constructivist approach that is an asset in the multicultural classroom to deconstruct stereotypes and prejudices. That culture, ethnicity, morality and religion do not have an objective essence, but seen as social constructions, using a critical approach is a way of thinking which was developed with inspiration from Nietzsche.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the Swedish relations to Nato and by doing so see on what terms the cooperation is executed and why. However, Sweden is not a member of Nato and is thereby not seen as an ally of the organization but even so Sweden has a close cooperation with Nato. The theories used in this essay is The Rational Actor Model and The Organizational Behaviour Model by Graham Allison and Philip Zelikow. To this a number of additional theorises are used as to complement these two main theories. The aim with these theories is to see which one gives the most satisfying explanation of the Swedish strategy to cooperate with Nato and still not be a member of the alliance or if all theorises are needed.

Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur marknadseffektiviteten på Stockholmsbörsen har blivit påverkat av finanskrisen 2008, vilket genomförs genom att undersöka om bolag får avvikande avkastning vid publicering av kvartalsrapporter.Teori: Teorikapitlet utgår från den effektiva marknadshypotesen, där dess tre olika komponenter samt anomalier tas upp.Metod: Undersökningen genomförs med hjälp av en event studie och en hypotesprövning för att kontrollera hur effektiviteten på NasdaqOMX har blivit påverkad av finanskrisen. Undersökningen utgår ifrån en period på tre år, 2009-2011, och omfattar aktierna på index OMXS30. En insamling av kursdata från de 29 bolag som ingick i OMXS30 har skett, med hänsyn till datum för publicering av kvartalsrapporter. Detta ger totalt 261 observationer under dessa tre år.Empiri: Hypotesprövningen tillsammans med övrig empiri har visat att det kan finnas ett samband mellan publicering av kvartalsrapporter och bolagens aktiepris. Dock visar empirin att finanskrisens påverkan på effektiviteten har varit mycket liten.Analys: Analys av empirin tyder på att det finns tydliga tecken på att bolagens aktiepris påverkas vid publicering av kvartalsrapporter.

In order for a retention of title clause (ROT-clause) to be valid against third parties underSwedish law, the debtor must be prohibited to dispose of the object transferred. Forinstance, the debtor must not be allowed to resell the object without the creditor?spermission or before the object has been fully paid. If the creditor gives consent to thedebtor?s disposal, he loses his right of separation.

Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att undersöka hur Parken Zoo försökte rädda sin image och påverkabilden av krisen parken befann sig i under hösten 2012. Uppsatsen har även som avsikt att undersökahur kriskommunikationen utvecklas under krisförloppet och hur den skiljer sig mellan två texttyper,samt belysa vilka språkliga resurser som används för att realisera strategierna inom image repair theory,som i denna uppsats benämns som Benoits teori om imagereparation. Materialet består av trepressmeddelanden och tre uttalanden publicerade på Facebook från Parken Zoo. Dessa har analyseratsutifrån Benoits (1997) teori om imagereparation samt systemisk-funktionell textanalys. Resultatetindikerar att Parken Zoo har försökt rädda sin image genom att ifrågasätta uppgifterna som framkommit,framhäva goda egenskaper och värderingar samt redogöra för åtgärder som vidtagits och ska vidtas.Jämförelsen av kriskommunikationen i pressmeddelandena och Facebook-uttalandena tyder på attkommunikationen på Facebook kännetecknas av en mer personlig och närhetsskapande strategi medankommunikationen i pressmeddelandena är mer auktoritär.

High housing- and construction costs is a fact in Sweden today. Prices on building materials more rapidly than producer price index for industrial goods. Prices tend to rise during market boom but does not adapt during diminishing demand. The effects of fading demand can rather be deduced through discounts and quotations. During 1992-1998 when the Swedish construction sector found it self in severe crisis the prices of construction materials kept rising more rapidly than PPI for industrial merchandise.

Background: The international accounting standard regarding goodwill gives opportunities to several accounting procedure choices, as goodwill is a complex, intangible asset. The valuation of goodwill affects equity/asset ratio and income statement, which gives that the stakeholders? impression of the group?s financial statement is affected by the valuation of this asset. It has been pointed out that difficult economic times bring impairment loss to the fore. During financial crisis, equity/asset ratio may be significant as the economy of the groups is expected to be strained.Purpose: The purpose of this essay is to explain the appearance of the possible relationship between a group?s impairment loss for goodwill and their equity/asset ratio, during financial straits.

Employable humanists. A qualitative study on humanist students' views on employability.The crisis of the humanities is a controversial debate in the media and within academic settings. Because of lack of request for humanists in the labor market, the question of humanistic skills and employability is becoming increasingly important. The concept of employability importance not only echoes within the economic discussions, but also on everyday agenda in the academic world and takes a large part in the communication between the university and the students. It is therefore important to get answers to the question whether there is conformity in the interpretation of this concept between the university and the students.The aim of this desk study is to examine how the concept of employability has its significance in the academic communication and how the responsibility for employability is portrayed.

The goal of this thesis was to explore how real estate investment companies are affected by a weaker world economy. The reason to investigate this was that in the 90s in Sweden, the housing market crashed in conjunction with the bank collapse. Therefore I have looked at how the commercial real estate companies would be affected if we were to have a double dip recession, because it has been confirmed by Gyourko that commercial real estate market and the housing market tend to react in the same way on new fundamental information. This was examined through a sensitivity analysis, one investigated the effect of falling rent income and the second analysis looked at the effect of higher interest costs. I found that IAS 40 rule about unrealized profits of properties affected the results in a significant matter and therefore decided to include the regulation in my thesis.