The fact that we apprehend certain phenomena as more convenient than others generate questions about what constitute and decide what we think of as normal and appropriate. The aim of this thesis is to explore the immense conception of power and authority through a narrower approach that focuses on the EU.With this in mind I examine the penetration of the neo-liberal ideology in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to see if there are any implications for hegemony. This is achieved through a discourse analysis which is strengthened with empirical cases of EU policies.The result of the discourse analysis of selected parts of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe reveals that there are in fact tendencies which indicate that our society and reality is dominated by a neo-liberal hegemonic discourse. Subsequently the contemporary discourse broadly infiltrates the entire European Union, and therefore also its member states..

The purpose of this study is to find out why the EU has not yet implemented the EuropeanCivil Peace Corps (ECPC), which the EU Parliament took a resolution about in 1999. Themore specific questions posed are whether the concept of ECPC has been redefined, whetherthe issue of ECPC has been prevented from coming up for discussion and decision-making,and what this has meant for the non-implementation. Steven Lukes' theory about the threedimensions of power is used in combination with a discourse analysis method. The materialused is documents from the EU Parliament's decisions and debate about ECPC, and ECPCfeasibility studies. In the analysis I find one "law and order"-discourse and one "peaceknowledge"-discourse.

The intention of this essay is to put the light on and to discuss if there is a connection between a pre-Christian creation mythology and naked rocks on prehistoric sacred places in Scandinavia. Archaeological as well as historical materials are studied. The historical material is mostly from Snorre Sturlasons Asasagan with the explanation of the creation of the world. In this story the world was built from the body of a killed and deposited giant named Ymer. Almost the same myth is told in all Indo-European countries.

Under valen 2002 ? 2006 har Sverigedemokraterna i Sydsverige gått starkt framåt. Vad kan förklara denna starka framgång?Syftet med denna uppsats är att försöka specifiera om värderingskillnader mellanSydsverige och övriga Sverige föreligger genom att undersöka om det finns någotsamband mellan region och inställning till det kulturella samhället. Genom att användamaterial från den europeiska forskningsprojektet European Social Survey (ESS)undersöks hypotesen om det föreligger värderingsskillnader mellan Sydsverige ochövriga Sverige i inställning till det mångkulturella samhället som då kan ha en del i förklaringen varför Sverigedemokraterna är starka just i Sydsverige.

Conflict prevention is a term which has gained much influence during the last decades. To prevent conflicts from occuring have both humanitarian and economic incentives as the cost for war are much greater than the cost of acting preventive. To act in this matter has been regarded a priority for the United Nations during several years, and the European Union have also expressed a wish of playing a more active part. The essay compares the actions taken by the international organisations in Macedonia, a country which headed toward a violent conflict. The UN acted through the mission UNPREDEP and the EU through the mission of Concordia.

This study investigated how we can understand St. Francis as environmentally conscious. The study also presents where those elements can be found in St. Francis own documents and from documents that describe St. Francis.

The prospect of Turkish accession to the EU has sparked controversy in many of the member countries. It has highlighted the different ways in which European as well as Turkish identity is being defined in the debate, with some politicians seemingly trying to draw on old prejudices in order to make the case against membership. By utilising discourse analysis as advocated by Thomas Diez, this thesis seeks to explore the debates regarding the Turkish accession bid in the British House of Commons. Its purpose is to analyse how ?EU? and ?Turkey?, understood as contested concepts, gets described in different ways.

Uppsatsen är en jämförande kvantitativ pilotstudie om och hur Ungerns politiska kultur och postmaterialistiska värderingar har förändrats sedan staten blev medlem i EU.Syftet är att se om det har skett några förändringar i den politiska kulturen och om EU har varit en bidragande faktor för förändringen. Primärkällor jag har använt mig av är World Values Survey och European Social Survey, och sekundärkällor är sådana källor som har definierat politisk kultur, och förklarat hur EU fungerar. Resultatet jag har kommit fram till är att den politiska kulturen inte har förändrats i stor grad men det har skett förändringar i några värderingar som leder till postmodernismen. Medlemskapet i EU kan vara en faktor till att förändringarna har skett, men det är inte enbart det som har påverkat..

We live in a world where the resources are not equally divided and that is why charity work is needed. The United Nations Children?s Fund, UNICEF, is a global organization that works for children?s human rights around the world. But perhaps even charity work, which´s often glorified in the society, need to be looked at from different directions. Research about intercultural education, globalization and charity shows that even good deeds can end up reproducing the problem that was supposed to be solved in the first place.

Aid effectiveness is a reoccuring theme in the social sciences. Maybe rightfully so, as development is slow in many parts of the developing world. Core literature on the matter seems to suggest that aid effectiveness is contingent on recipients? level of corruption. Assuming this to be true, I examine the EU?s disbursements of Official Development Assistance over the past decade by running regressions: is there a relationship between the level of aid received, and a country?s level of corruption? As the EU is one of the largest donors of foreign aid globally, and has the power to shape the global foreign aid agenda, this question puts to the test whether the EU is leading the way, or rather is an obstacle in front.

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.

According to Edward Said the Orient is a European construction that has arisen out of a need to describe the Western civilisation as culturally superior. This occurrence Said gives the label "Orientalism". Art historian Linda Nochlin takes Said?s theories further in The Imaginary Orient where she conveys the thesis that the pictorial Orientalism is an expression of an imperialistic ideology. John M.

About 10 % of the adult women population in Sweden are treated annually for urinary tract infections. The increasing bacterial resistance towards antibiotics is classified by WHO (World Health Organization) and ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) as one of the greatest treats for human health in a global perspective. To find alternatives scientists are studying the possibility to use probiotics to reduce the frequency of recurring urinary tract infections. This literature study examines five randomized double blinded placebo controlled studies where different strains of Lactobacillus have been used as a prophylactic to women suffering from recurrent urinary tract infections and bacterial vaginosis. Overall the studies do not display enough promising results to recommend the use of probiotics as a prophylax or cure..

This paper discusses if Margin of Appreciation is compatible with the idea of universal human rights. Through the case of Negative freedom of association in Sweden, it studies the phenomenon that Giorgio Agamben has called the State of exception.The questions that are discussed and answered are 1) How does the rights theories of Jack Donnelly and Ronald Dworkin relate to Margin of appreciation, and 2) How has Margin of appreciation been applied in cases concerning the negative freedom of association in Sweden, in the European court for human rights. These questions and answers are then used in the discussion on how Margin of appreciation affects the concept of universal human rights. .

This study attempts to answer the question of whether the propaganda of the Swedish political parties ?Socialdemokraterna?, and/or ?Sverigedemokraterna?, used for the election to the European parliament 2009, are to be viewed as populistic. Furthermore, is the propaganda to viewed as included in the ?Classical populism?, the ?New populism?, both, or none of the above genres? With a theoretical approach deriving from earlier works on the subject Classical/New populism from a number of writers, the study uses empirical and qualitative text analysis to study the parties propaganda. For each of the two genres of populism an ideal type is set up, which is used to define their core elements.