The purpose of this essay is to examine the United Nation?s work and structure to find possible factors that can explain why some peacekeeping operations have achieved to mainstream a gender perspective, when others have not. This study is based on two cases; the peacekeeping operation in Namibia and the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo.The theory I have chosen to apply is feminism, a theory that allows an alternative explanation to this phenomenon. The conclusion is that there are three decisive factors: The leadership and its will to recruit female personnel to decision-making positions, the number of female employees and whether the peacekeeping operation cooperates with local women-organisations or not. All this is of great importance whether the institutional hegemonic masculine culture within the United Nation and its peacekeeping operations, is challenged or not..

The aim of this paper is to map out the purposes of the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations. This is done in order to see if humanitarian tendencies have been an increasingly cause for the UN to initiate an intervention with military means. This paper uses the time period from the end of the cold war until today, since that historic occurrence increased the U.N.?s involvement in peacekeeping. By using this time span it enables the survey to indicate changes in the mapping of humanitarian interventions.

Not enough attention has been paid to the correlation between the failure of peacekeeping operations and the actual source of civil wars. This text is an attempt to fill that gap. Hence the question: under which conditions is it possible for peacekeeping operations to replace the responsibility of the state concerning the security aspects of the social contract? The outset of the text, using the theories of Robert Nozick, is a theoretical approach towards the founding of states, described as the merging of entities. The theory serves a purpose since it, in combination with identity, illustrates in what manner the glue of society occurs and the rallying around other kind of loyalties like clans and ethnicities.

With the starting point in UN peacekeeping operations, this essay investigates the participation of the Swedish armed forces and how the Swedish soldiers perceive their role in those operations. The aim of the study was to explore different perceptions about the Swedish soldiers in international operations. Partly from the Swedish soldiers perspective and how they perceived their own role as soldiers. Partly from the perspective of civilians, like Swedish aid workers, and how they perceive the Swedish soldiers. The third perspective was from a person with mixed experiences from both the military and the civilian work.

This essay is on the subject of the changes that the Swedish military is undergoing. This essay will take the old ways of alignment thinking, were the military was to protect the nation against an invasion and compare it to the newer way of alignment thinking, where the military is to go abroad and do peacekeeping operations as there main objective. This comparison will be done by using Bengt Abrahamson theory about professions. He uses three parts one is specialised theoretical knowledge, another is ethics and the last is corps spirit. This theory will then be connected to four interviews.

AbstractBetween 1989-1996 and 2000-2003 a civil war took place in Liberia. During the war many, many people were killed or were forced to flee. Another of the war's characteristics was the high number of women being sexually abused and beaten by the soldiers. The aim of this thesis is to analyze to what degree the peacekeeping personnel in Liberia, foremost staff working for the UN and agencies related to the UN, have implemented Resolution 1325 in their work. Resolution 1325 was adopted by the members of the United Nations Security Council in year 2000 and aims to increase the efforts made to secure women's rights and security in parts of the world where war and crisis prevail.

Participating in peace support operations has been and remains a significant part of the Swedish defense and security politics. Since the end of the Cold War, the Swedish national defence has been more and more dismantled, in favor of international peace support operations which have become an increasingly important task for the Swedish defence. Why then, is Sweden so engaged in conflicts so far from home? Using two classic theories of international politics, realism and liberalism, this study aims to shed light on arguments from the Swedish parliament on why it is important for Sweden to participate in international peace support operations. After analyzing arguments of the Social Democrat Party, the Moderate Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Party concerning three different peace support operations which Sweden has participated in, the result shows that although both realism and liberalism are influencing the parties? argumentation, liberalism is the theory which is used more often.

The main focus of this study is to explore Swedish soldiers? experiences of the transition back to everyday life after international service missions. This includes the help and support that they have received and also what barriers to care they have experienced during the transition back to everyday life. The theoretical perspectives of this study are social identity and stigma theory. This study was performed using a qualitative method and includes six individual interviews with active duty officers within the Swedish armed forces.

INGEN LAG ? STRAFF? ABSTRACTThe thesis deals with a gap in the Swedish legislation concerning the criminal responsibility under which military personnel act in international peace operations. According to international treaties called Status of Forces Agreements, military personnel operating abroad within the territory of other states are exempted from the criminal law of the host states. In return, their home states apply its national criminal law upon the personnel instead. Thus, Swedish criminal law is applied in relation to actions taken by Swedish military forces in international operations.

The purpose of this essay was to study the family situation in connection to the absence of one parent due to participation in international peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations. Focus was on the temporarily absent parent's point of view. The study was based on five interviews with parents shortly after their returning home. The main questions has been how the parent described the child-parent relationship before, during and after the absence; the children's experience during this time according to the parent and the family's adjusting to and coping with the situation. Conclusions made from the study show that with a good stabile child-parent relationship and good parenting skills of both parents the families in this study were successful in coping with the situation.

What impact and effects are created by the placement of an international ranking? Could it be that a top rank is detrimental to an entire country's efforts to fight corruption?This bachelor thesis in political science is about Swedish corruption. In essence, so questioning the Transparency International's indexed rankings that placed Sweden in third place. Issues concern since if the third placement has created nonchalance and a careless mentality in Swedish government and in particular in the municipal operations. Research results show that Transparency International's rankings have low validity and low reliability and that the government is not acting sufficiently to prevent and fight corruption.

This essay takes the three models from Allison and Zelikow book Essence of decision and applies them on the Swedish defense system. After the cold war the Swedish defense system had to undergo changes to be a more modern defense and be able to defend Sweden against threats. To also be able to cooperate with other countries in peacekeeping operations the Swedish defense had to be reorganized. The solution was to change direction from a defense system that was organized for invasion to instead be a movable defense ready for any challenge in Sweden or abroad. This reorganization will be analyzed according to the three different models..

Due to the increasing international operations for the Swedish Armed Forces these new types of opponents needs new tools to cope with these commitments. A couple of years ago the Swedish Armed Forces had no non-lethal weapons, but today the Swedish soldier has a number of tools to choose from.The purpose of this paper is for the reader to get a presentation of which non-lethal weapons are used today by the Swedish Armed Forces and a sample of what non-lethal weapons are out on the market today. My main question is which non-lethal weapons do the Swedish Armed Forces? miss in their non-lethal capabilities set.I have collected information from a wide selections of sources like reports from the Swedish Defence Research Agency, the Swedish Armed Forces? own regulations and the Internet. The information is then processed and divided into five chapters: The development of non-lethal weapons, description of technologies, non-lethal weapons in the Swedish Armed Forces, Non-lethal weapons on the market and Results.This paper is limited to handheld, portable and man to man non-lethal weapons, all non-lethal weapons in the Swedish Armed Forces or on the international market are not covered.My conclusion is that the Swedish Armed Forces should acquire three 40 mm projectiles, one 12-gauge projectile and one TASER®..

This essay takes the three models from Allison and Zelikow book Essence of decision and applies them on the Swedish defense system. After the cold war the Swedish defense system had to undergo changes to be a more modern defense and be able to defend Sweden against threats. To also be able to cooperate with other countries in peacekeeping operations the Swedish defense had to be reorganized. The solution was to change direction from a defense system that was organized for invasion to instead be a movable defense ready for any challenge in Sweden or abroad. This reorganization will be analyzed according to the three different models..

Kvinnor har sedan 1980 fått tjänstgöra som officer i Sveriges försvarsmakt. Trots detta är fortfarande de kvinnliga officerarna och soldaterna i klar minoritet i organisationen. FN:s säkerhetsråd har arbetat fram två resolutioner som båda strävar efter att involvera kvinnor i större omfattning när det gäller arbeten vid kris, krig och konflikter. Inte enbart att öka andelen kvinnor i hjälpande trupper, utan även involvera lokalbefolkningen. Hur ser då verkligheten ut vid de internationella insatserna? I detta arbete presenteras en fallstudie om MOT Juliette, ett kvinnligt observationsteam som under sju månader tjänstgjorde i Afghanistan.