AbstractTurkey has emerged as a major actor in the Middle East over the last decade, since the ruling party AKP came to power in 2002. Turkey is now playing a mediation role in regional conflicts and has been speaking out loudly on sensitive issues such as the Iranian nuclear program and the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. Furthermore, Turkey has established close ties with the Arab world which has suffered the relationship with its long-time ally Israel. This new presence in Middle East has been criticized by Turkey's allies in west. Critics argue that the country is about to abandon its former western relationship and strengthen their ties with the Arab world instead.This thesis has two main purposes.

The purpose of this study was to examine the incentives behind Sweden?s decision to engagein the Afghanistan conflict.The method used to fulfil the purpose of the study is content analysis. The material that hasbeen used in the study is various books and articles concerning Sweden in Afghanistan,Swedish foreign policy and perspectives in political science.The study is multi-theoretical and thus the analysis explains the incentives from a liberal, arealist and a constructivist point of view.The conclusion of the study is that identity has a great part in explaining the incentives forSweden to engage in Afghanistan, especially because of the transformation in strategy andforeign policy that has taken place since the end of the cold war. Other factors, such as peacebuilding and national interests also are incentives supported by the material used in the study.Yet, perhaps they are first and foremost connected by the constructivist idea of identity..

In 2005 the Swedish social democratic government settled a defense treaty with Saudi Arabia. Ten years later, a new Social democratic government ends the treaty. This thesis will study the Social democratic party?s motives behind their actions regarding the treaty. Kjell Goldmanns theory regarding the three fields of interest concerning state?s foreign policy, security policy, economy and international values, will serve as the theory and operationalization of this thesis.

The aim of this study is to analyze the process of an agenda setting and see how a specific issue came to materialize on the security policy agenda. The empirical goal of the study is to see why Sweden chose to participate in the EU-led operation to Chad, and how that process came to be? The analysis is based upon Kingdon's multiple streams theory (2003) where he distinguishes the process into three streams. Central for his theory is the coupling of these streams and the importance of a policy entrepreneur. I complement Kingdon's theory of policy entrepreneurs by taking inspiration from Hinnfors (1995), Gustavsson (1999) and especially Eriksson (2000) and their analysis of policy change and agenda setting.

AbstractThis thesis analyzes the Russian Foreign Policy Doctrine from a broad theoretical perspective, with the aim of describing and explaining the doctrine using a number of theoretical approaches. Russia's foreign policy has undergone substantial changes since Vladimir Putin became president in the year 2000, involving a radical shift in foreign policy objectives and thereby moving away from the more confrontational and distrusting policies which characterized the Boris Jeltsin regime. Putins doctrine, based on pragmatism and seeking partnership and collaboration with the West, can be described as a near revolutionary re-orientation of Russia's foreign policy guidelines, meaning a transformation of the country's self image which implies a rejection of great power status and a search for a new role in the international community.Our thesis has examined explanatory variables such as the domestic political situation in Russia, the contemporary international system and President Vladimir Putins system of beliefs in order to describe and explain the doctrine. Our results show that the doctrine is largely a product of Putins personality, values and beliefs, but also to a large extent a consequence of necessities, namely the poor Russian economy and the fact that the country no longer can withstand an all out conflict with the West involving an excessive arms race.Keywords: Vladimir Putin, pragmatism, realism, domestic politics, radical change..

This study examines how Qatar and Russia utilize football as an instrument of foreign-policy. While previous reasearch has primarily focused on mega-events, such as the Olympic games and the FIFA World Cup, this thesis expands the scope by analyzing how footbal functions as a strategic tool for nation branding in both countries. The study employs a comparative qualitative case study appraoch, based on Simon Anholt?s nation branding framework, modified to include four dimensions instead of six. The analysis demonstrates that both Qatar and Russia leverage football to advance their foreign policy objectives, but in markedly different ways.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply.

This thesis examines the USA?s response to the military coup in Myanmar 2021 through a comparative analysis of the two dominant international relations theories: realism and liberalism. The study uses a qualitative text analysis of the US Burma act of 2021 to test the explanatory power of the theories in the formulation of US policy. The results shows that liberal theory has the greater explanatory power, as the US response was systematically motivated by a normative desire to restore democracy in Myanmar. However, some realist tendencies could be observed, especially through exception clauses preserving US national security interest and the mention of China?s support for the military junta in Myanmar.

We have inquired into how the amount of foreign news has changed over the last 30 years in two major Swedish newspapers, which subjects and regions has dominated the content of the foreign news and what subjects dominate the reporting from certain regions. This was done with a quantitative analysis of subjects and regions written about in 1100 news texts during a week in each year of 1978, 1988, 1998 and 2008. To further broaden our study, we also charted with the analysis how the newspapers domesticate foreign news and how they use international news agencies. As a basis for our discussion we use Van Ginnekens theories of world news centres, Westerståhl & Johanssons and Galtung & Ruges theories of foreign news selection as well as the theories of Hjarvard and Biltereyst about the domestication of foreign news due to commercial pressures and objectives on the newspapers. Our result of the amount of foreign news in the two newspapers is also compared to several similar empirical studies by different researchers.

One of the big challenges for the European Union today lies in finding a common foreign policy for its 27 sovereign member states with their divided interests, experiences and traditions. New objectives set requirements on the Union to develop and intensify its military ability. The European Union´s view on when military force can be utilized sets concepts like sovereignty and intervention in focus. Can sovereignty be limited and if so can an intervention be justified? How did the Union argue regarding its participation in the intervention in Afghanistan, 2001? The Just War Theory gives the essay a normative framework against which to assess the Union´s view and guidelines for the use of military capabilities.

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply. Using theories of policy implementation and the municipal planning situation, possible explanations for the findings of the analysis could be a split in responsibility between the formulating and implementation of the policy for housing supply and its contents, a lack of resources of means for implementing or the prevalence of special interests when attempting to convert policy to plans..

The aim of this paper is to explain how the European Union?s common strategy for theCommon Foreign- and Security Policy (CFSP) will change with the implementation of the Treaty of Lisbon. A comparative case study and qualitative method is used. On the basis of Smith?s theory of institutionalization we will analyze two member states: France and Denmark.

The aim of this Masters thesis is to examine the view of literature within Swedish governmental cultural policy. The main issue is to discover changes in attitude towards democracy, literature and library by comparing the attitudes in the governmental policy documents from the 1970s with the governmental policy documents from the 1990s. The theoretical starting point is Danish cultural policy researcher Dorte Skot-Hansens theories of the development of cultural policy in the Nordic countries. My method of analysis is a textual one, analysis of ideas and ideology, focusing on the aspect of signification of a text. The study has an effort of analysing the governmental policy in terms of idea and ideology.

This study in political science examines the UN adopted resolution 1970 (2011) andresolution 1973 (2011) on the basis of foreign policy decision-making. The study aims toexplain how the UN principle of Responsibility to Protect came to be legitimized for the firsttime by the UN Security Council in the Libya conflict in 2011. By a poliheuristic perspectivethe study attempt to explain Russia and China?s acting in the voting of resolution 1970 andresolution 1973. The background to the conflict in Libya 2011 is presented in the study aswell as the Security Council?s actions during the conflict, from the beginning of the conflictuntil the adoption of resolution 1973.

The UN has a goal to gender-mainstream all politics, but its politics in climate change is not gender-sensitive. The Swedish government has the same goal concerning gender mainstreaming, but does the Swedish politics of climate change reach this goal? The aim of this paper is to examine the relations between the Swedish politics of gender and climate change. In addition, the aim is also to investigate how gender is constructed in the climate politics. To reach these aims, an institutional, policy and gender analysis is used.