It is said that libraries are the cornerstones of democracy.What is then the democratic mandate, and how is itperceived by the library staff? That's what I examine in thismaster's thesis. I?ve made 14 phone interviews with librarystaff, from assistants to managers, and examined what theirdaily work routine looks like and what they think belongs tothe democratic mandate. I found that all agree that there is ademocratic mandate, but it is not clearly stated in anydocument.I found seven areas that my respondents saw as part of themandate; availability, diversity, children and young people,equality, public education, free of law and cultural history.These are not sharply defined, but can often move into oneanother.

The ambition of this essay is to examine if groups on Facebook are examples of ?slacktivism? and discuss which qualifications these groups have in order to provide a democratic conversation. The results will be discussed relative to democratic participant, information overload, interactivity and previous research. By nethnographically observing three groups and analyzing selected posts and comments with the critical discourse analysis one can see that slacktivism spreads easily by people liking and sharing posts from the groups to their friends. The particular groups that has been analyzed in this essay are committed to save Swedish traditions that they believe is threatened.

According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

There is much literature covering strategic change under different circumstances but very little concerning how companies act strategically under sudden and radical changes to market conditions. Based on three different events (the terrorist attack in the USA September 11th 2001, the Tjernobyl accident April 26th 1986 and the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979) with such radical changes as a result we chose three companies that were affected (SAS, Asea Atom and Atlas Copco). The result of the events that were studied in this thesis is extremely unusual to their character. The events themselves were sudden and of a temporary nature but the results were long term changes of market conditions. Through personal interviews the authors have tried to establish how the companies have perceived the events and how the top management has strategically handled the situation.

In subsequent to Post-colonialism the African nations have dilated into different political directions. While some nations have established well-functioning democracies, others are still under authoritarian regimes. The aim of this thesis is to examine if civil society has an impact on democratic development in West Africa. Therefore the theoretical starting point is Putnam?s theory of social capital, but this study will also examine other possible causal explanations for democratic transition.This study will be based on a comparative analysis of Ghana and Guinea.

The Swedish Social Democratic Party was for a long time skeptical of Sweden?s opportunitiesto apply for membership in the European Community. Sweden?s longstanding policy ofneutrality was until the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe 1989 seen as an obstacle tomembership. These changes were an important factor to why the social democratic partychanged their position on the EC and in October 1990 applied for membership.

The study shows how seven informants, all studying at a university in northern Sweden to become art teachers, perceive and relate to controversial contemporary art in the context of secondary school art education. The study is based on semi-structured interviews. The study contributes to a nuanced view of these informants opinions and thoughts regarding provocative contemporary art, in relation to the school's democratic values ??and founding mission. The seven informants' responses were compiled thematically linked to the study's purpose and issues to allow for comparisons and analysis.

By studying a place or a phenomena research contributes to the creation of the image of the thing that he or she studies. Also, planning is seen as a democratic tool, a way to ?make? democracy. In order to see what democratic ideals that is being express it becomes important to study the research about democracy in Botkyrka. It is from this thinking this study about democracy and research has been formed.

This essay elucidates upper secondary students? literacy practices, (literacy events, literacy competencies and literacy culture) during a typical day, with focus on the daily literacy practices. A literacy ethnographic study conducted in the environment which participants naturally are, at home, at school and in leisure. The study is inspired of a project, Skriftbruk i arbetslivet, ´Literacy Practices in Working Life´, that conducted by Anna-Malin Karlsson, Per Ledin and Olle Josephson, in collaboration with Vetenskapsrådet ´Science Council´(2002-2004).The result of this study shows that students from professional preparing programs not use such literacy competencies that been tested in traditionally reading comprehension test, particularly much. However, do they read a lot during the literacy practices day by television, computer and mobile phone.

Partly as a reaction to a perceived crisis in contemporary democracy, the nineties witnessed an upsurge in different forms of citizens? fora, dedicated to the promotion of increased participation by the citizen in the political process. Youth councils are a special point in case as they entail the general characteristics of a deliberative forum, with an emphasis on political learning. This study aims to undertake an evaluation of a regional youth council in the region of Skåne in the south of Sweden. Through qualitative analysis, the study aims to portray the origin, purposes and consequences of such a forum.

The purpose of this essay is to present, from a theoretical framwork about regional democracy, possible methods to handle the regional democratic problems in Östergötland in Sweden and to investigate the opinion of the political parties regarding this issue. Both the national and the local/regional level are investigated. The contents of the essay is based on literature studies and interviews of politicians in Östergötland. Regional democratic problems that is discussed are the political responsibility and the power distribution between the political actors on the regional level. A solution of the problem could be to organize the regional society structure in accordance with one of the following organization models"Statligt regionalt ansvar","Kommuner i samverkan"or"Regionalt folkstyre".

Democracy is a term that has been researched, and still is researched, a lot. In my education to become a teacher it has been the subject that interests me the most and I would like to be able to contribute to this research. The starting point of this essay is that in my experience there is a difference in how the national curriculum describes democracy and how the students I have met describes it. Therefore I wanted to investigate whether this also applies to a wider context than the students that I meet in my everyday life. The purpose of this essay is; to examine whether students in the ninth grade has the same view on democracy as the national means of control. The result I have attained through my work is that they somewhat share the same vision.

My essay begins with two stories showing two different perspectives when looking at learning in preschool. These two different learning styles I have chosen to call, the measurable and the difficult to measure learning. As a pedagogue I am involved in both events. In these events I describe how different we pedagogues interpret our governing documents on children's learning. By describing how the educational activities are designed differently in the two events, I try to highlight the pedagogues views on learning in preschool.

The UN was established after the Second World War. The organization?s primary goal was to maintain peace among all nations. When the UN intervenes in other states affairs, it is violat-ing the principles it is set to defend, principles of non-intervention and respect for sover-eignty. The outcome from such interventions is very important, a result that can legitimize the action.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitude of teachers regarding including democratic behaviour when grading students in social science. The purpose is also to investigate whether the teachers consider there to be a conflict between the right of freedom of speech and the democratic values that the school is supposed to make sure the students have when they graduate. The study also investigates the problems political decisions encounters when going from theory to reality.The theory of Ulf Petäjä on why the freedom of speechs is important, Robert Dahls theory about the democratic process and Anders Sannerstedts theory about converting political decisions to reality is what this study is based on.The study was carried out at three different schools; Teleborg Centrum, Växjö, Dackeskolan, Tingsryd and Centralskolan, Virserum ranging from the spring of 2006 and the spring of 2007. The method used except from litterature studies was interviews with active teachers.This study shows that teachers don?t think it?s acceptable to grade students based on their political ideology.