The aim of this paper is to research and discuss the role the cultural politics play for the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen) and the meaning culture politics have within the labour market policy. A research has shown that Arbetsförmedlingen evaluates unemployed cultural workers differently than regular registered jobseekers. From an instrumental perspective on political implementation this can be considered as an anomali. Arbetsförmedlingen?s mandate derives from the government and its authority is a tool for carrying out state policy.

People have used forest resources in northern Sweden for different purposes. Before the 20th century the forest was used for many different reasons, but during the past 200 years it has become an industrial raw material. The presence of people in the forest has left different kinds of traces in the forests. One example is culturally modified trees (CMT´s). The aim of this study was to study and document how people have used the forest resources during the last centuries in Brännlidens nature reserve, and what kind of traces this land use has left.

This thesis is a case study that examines what political decisions have been taken and how these policies have been implemented. Further this thesis discusses how legitimacy of local policy makers and implementors is affected. The subject studied have been the social service of Jönköping municipality and the intervention of safe-housing aimed at women who have been, or are subject to violence by person close to them. In our study we have examined local policy within the territory of the intervention and how this policy is implemented. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used in combination with quantitative methods to examine protocols from the social welfare board and an action program named "Skydd och stöd för misshandlade kvinnor och deras barn? [Protection and support for abused women and their children].The purpose of this study has been to highlight how the social services implemented the local policy of safe-house accommodation in Jönköping municipality from the legitimacy and discretion perspectives.

SCA is the largest private owned forest owner in Sweden, with an ownership of 2 million hectares of productive forestland. To manage the planning of such large areas and to fit the traditional organization structure of a Swedish forest company, the planning approach is subdivided into three stages; strategic, tactical and operational. The strategic part, based on a statistic sample of stands, returns a harvest level estimate which should then be implemented at actual sites in the tactical part. This procedure can lead to incompatible solutions as the strategic solution is not necessarily possible to translate into actual sites in the tactical plan. The geographic aspect is important in tactical planning due to the large costs for moving equipment and maintenance of a large number of forest roads.

The scarcity of qualified forest machine operators as well as the increased competition for competent machine operators among others from the mining industry in Norrland, were the reasons to investigate what attracts and what deters active and potential forest machine operators to the occupation. An interview study was conducted among four groups with four persons in each group. The groups were students in year 1 and 3 respectively at a forestry school at upper secondary school level as well as employees of a forest company and employees of contractors. The majority of all respondents were of the opinion that their interests in machines had been important for the choice of occupation. But for the active machine operators both the interest in the forest and their interest for machines have had importance for choosing this occupation.

A great deal of the nature experience we get today is from travelling along our roads, which to a large extent go through the forest landscape. This makes the forest along our roads interesting to look at from a nature experience perspective. The main idea of this work is to increase the awareness of how we are affected by the forest when we travel through it and find out how the forest should be adapted to the road environment to create a pleasant nature experience as well as increase traffic safety. 0.9 % of Sweden's total forest area (equivalent to 200 000 hectares) is in close proximity to roads. Additionally, in Sweden 440 million hours are spent behind the wheel of which a great deal probably is spent on roads surrounded by forest in some form.

This study's primary purpose was monitoring of conservancy operation measures. The fixed sections within ekopark Storklinten owned by the forest company Sveaskog. These measures are performed with the purpose of creating and maintaining hardwood forest and mimic natural processes. The sections were divided into different categories depending on the type of measures they were exposed with. The monitoring showed that the purpose of these measures was fulfilled in general.

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy ReportThis paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them.

AbstractThe wild forest reindeer is a subspecies of the reindeer. Wild forest reindeer earlier had awide distribution range in Sweden, but it was extinct in the middle of the 19:th centurybecause of extensive hunting. In Finland, the w.f.reindeer was extinct a few decades later bysimilar reasons. Later they migrated back to the eastern parts of Finland in the middle of the20: th century. Around 1980, the w.f.reindeer was actively rentroduced to western Finland,and there the population has had a positive development.

The Swedish alcohol policy has by tradition a restrictive composition, with high taxes and the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly as important elements. The Moderate Party has been powerful critics of the alcohol policy and has advocated a reformation. However, today the Moderate Party seems to have changed the attitude towards the alcohol policy and it even supports the Swedish initiative to create cooperation about alcohol matters at the EU level.This thesis examines why the Moderate Party has changed its attitude towards the restrictive alcohol policy. Three aspects have been considered: the rise of a European public policy, strategic choice, and the influence of the political environment. The paper discusses the problem from a strategic perspective, which means that the political change is viewed as a result of strategic considerations.The party has indeed been affected by all of the three aspects, although to different extent.

In Sweden there are 354 000 private individuals owning forest. Of these forest owners there are at least two thirds that are self-employed, which means that about 215 000 forest owners conduct some kind of work in their own forest. Those numbers do not refer to firewood production, but every year 7.3 million piled cubic meters of firewood are used for heating Swedish households. This implies that many households are also producing firewood. The objective of this study was to assess and analyse the small-scale firewood production in the Umeå-region in terms of persons engaged in the work, equipment used, produced volumes and share of forest-owning households involved in these activities. According to results from a questionnaire, the average firewood producing person is a man between 40-60 years old.

The way to acquire forest in Sweden from parents has been unequal, men were prioritized over women, which was the traditional inheritance pattern. Research has made this clearer by using gender, which ?values? our stereotypes of sexes and can help us understand inheritance patterns. The gender determined who would inherit but also the form of ownership, praxis, property rights, regulations, power and work invested made by a sibling could influence. The purpose with my study was to find what conditions governed inheritance of forest on the properties I investigated and what influence gender had.

The Motor Group of the European Council was commissioned in the autumn of 1997 to prepare a proposal for a new European Bus and Coach Directive. In the beginning, most of the Member States did not have the accessibility requirements as their main concern; still a smaller network with actors from the National delegations from Britain, Germany and Sweden would influence the other National delegations in the Council group to finally agree to retain the requirement of accessibility of the Directive. Within the EU decision process, the European Disability movement acted as a strong player during the whole negotiation process using the proposal to a new Bus and Coach Directive as a tool to influence key actors to go towards a Directive with a strong approach for accessibility.Policy Transfer and Policy Transfer Network are used as analytical tools to understand and structure the transfer of the question of accessibility during the negotiation process. Actors understanding how the bureaucratic process works within the EU decision system have a chance to contributing for the changes in the directions they wishes for within a range of policy areas. The principal aim of the Directive was to guarantee the safety of passengers and to provide technical prescription in particular to wheelchair users.

This master?s paper first presents some of the principal theories and concepts developed by the poverty researchers Rowntree, Titmuss, Townsend, Sen and Lister. These theoretical frameworks are then related to two documents from the EU and Sweden concerning combating poverty and social exclusion, bearing on the establishment of the ?Year 2010 against Poverty?. Finally, I discuss the value in practice of these theories and policy documents, as regards reducing poverty in Europe.It has become clear in this investigation that the theories and concepts from earlier research are still relevant to the formulation of contemporary policy programmes, and that earlier research helps us to avoid old traps in fighting poverty.

During the early Middle Ages beech forests (Fagus sylvatica L.) spread out over large parts of southern Sweden. They had a crucial role in human survival for hundreds of years. For various reasons, the beech forest area has decreased since the 1600s. Spruce planted on former beech forest land was the primary reason for the decline during the second half of the 1900s, which made many worried about the future of the beech forests and led to a beech forest act in 1974. This study describes the background to the beech forest act based on parliamentary official documents.