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.

In a globalized world, competitiveness is based on the high IP (intellectual property) of our export products and innovations are therefore important for new companies to establish and develop. It´s not enough to just have big international companies but it is also necessary to invest in new companies that can be competitive in the future. By helping entrepreneurs with innovation support in the early stages, new technology-based businesses are established and developed. The purpose of this paper was to examine how innovation support in the early stages affects the establishment and development of new technology-based companies. Furthermore, we investigated how this will affect Sweden's international competitiveness.

This security study attempts to explain the dynamics of international conflict management of an intrastate conflict, through a combination of three theoretical frameworks. The conflict in Syria is shown to be managed mainly through strategies using coercive diplomacy, and some main contributions within the research field relating to strategies of coercion are used for guidance, to important factors which could affect coercive international conflict management, as well as to additional theories which could enhance the study?s explanatory power through a combined theoretical framework. The two added theoretical frameworks are Power Balancing and a Multidimensional concept of Power. With the aid of analytical tools derived from this combined framework the conflict management is analysed within both a multilateral and unilateral setting, offering some explanation as to why international conflict management (practiced by UNSC multilaterally and USA unilaterally) has shown so little progress in regard to the conflict, as well as why one significant, though limited, result could be achieved regarding the destruction of the Syrian regime?s chemical weapons arsenal..

Problem: What are the characteristics of Polykemi?s management control system and how is it affected by growth? Purpose: To describe and analyse the management control system of a medium-sized family-owned company from the perspective of Simons? Levers of control. Research design: An abductive, interview-based case study of Polykemi AB. Conclusion: Polykemi?s management control system is primarily a traditional one which is rather strong in terms of Levers of control.

The aim of this paper is to clarify the up till now somewhat shady definition of legitimacy, and to investigate what happens to this concept when it is transferred from the boundaries of the nation state to the realms of the international arena. By creating a model of legitimacy from which an institution can be evaluated, the purpose of this paper is to investigate what legitimacy is and how important it is for the actors within the international society. The next step involves evaluating what makes the UN a legitimate institution and how its foundation is affected by the blatant disregard of its authority by one of its? most influential members.The theoretical framework consists of a summary of what contemporary analysts? views of legitimacy are, which I have incorporated into my own institutional model of legitimacy. The role of institutions is central to all aspects of this study.

The purpose of this composition was to examine which international and Swedish laws exist to govern the protection of asylum seekers claiming persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation. Additionally I wanted to look at what the need for such a right to refuge would be based upon, i.e. why asylum seekers ought to be granted such protection. In order to fulfil my objectives I based my material on international and Swedish laws, comparing these to studies of what negative impact growing up and living as homosexual in an oppressed environment can have on the individual, psychologically and socially. To highlight and exemplify my material I used Iran as a case-study to reflect my facts upon.I found that there has been, and still seems to be a lack of interest in and commitment to the persecution of homosexuals around the world.

Export is a top priority for Sweden's economy but for Swedish companies it may involve uncomfortable risks of exporting without sincere consideration. When the United Nations Security Council puts an embargo against a country, this often mean an import and export restriction. The thought is to push undemocratic regimes into respecting human rights. When the embargo is in force, however, the parties are not able to fulfill their contractual obligations, which practically means that the agreement will be suspended. The problem is what happens when an embargo is in force for a longer period of time.

Crowdfunding is a phenomenon that is subject to a great growth during the recent years, and the growth rate doesn't seem to stagnate. When new legislation named the JOBS Act in the U.S. becomes effective in late 2015, crowd equity will surely become a popular tool for financing businesses. Because crowdfunding great popularity is caused by the possibility to reach out to crowds through the internet, it is a global phenomenon, why it's relevant to examine current legislations in jurisdictions. This thesis covers an examination of Swedish laws of how they govern crowdfunding, and also suggestions on how the laws should be changed to more efficiently  correspond with the purposes of crowdfunding..

Due to the growth of multinational concerns during the last decades, with large parts of international trade involving such corporations, the field of transfer pricing, including financial transactions such as internal loans, have received a great deal of attention in tax legislation. The internationally accepted foundation for transfer pricing is the so called Arm's length principle, expressed in Swedish law through the "Korrigeringsregeln". In the Diligentia court case, the concepts of transparency and control were given a crucial role in the calculation of an Arm's length's price of interest rates. The Swedish tax agency interpreted the ruling in that case as if a parent company always can be assumed to enjoy sufficient transparency and control to reduce the risk on their debt obligations. A great deal of uncertainty therefore surrounded their position and to what extent the Diligentia-ruling could be cited as precedent.

The United Nations has a responsibility to combat acts of international terrorism, as they constitute a threat to international peace and security. In spite of this, there exists no generally accepted definition of the phenomenom within the UN. By examining resolutions on terrorism, this thesis aims to evaluate the UN?s policy on terrorism since the end of the cold war until 2003. The results show that the UN?s attitude towards terrorism eversince the end of the cold war has been condemning, but that the the events of September 11th 2001 has contributed to an even more firm approach to the problem.

The Swedish sports retail industry has experienced extensive growth during the last decade, and this has attracted new entrants to the market, both start-ups and international followers. This has inevitably put more pressure on incumbents, which are now confronted with major challenges as how to retain their customers and market shares. Customer loyalty has been proved to be an important factor for customer retention and proposed to constitute inertia of switching behavior. In light of this problematization, the purpose of this study is to describe the underlying factors of loyalty and whether purchase habits could further explain customer loyalty. The aim is also to understand the strategic implications of the factors involved.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate possible reasons Sweden might have had to motivate the start and end of its nuclear program during the Cold war. This investigation will be conducted using a qualitative research method and making a comparison between the theories realism and liberalism?s ability to explain the decisions. The question this paper is based upon is as follows: Can Sweden?s creating and shutting down of a nuclear weapons program during the Cold war be explained by the international events and actions that were taking place during this time period? The result consists of liberalism pointing out several failures on the international level that might explain the cynical decision from Sweden to create the nuclear weapons. Realism considers the decision to make perfect sense at this point in time, to protect Sweden on the anarchy that was going on at that time according to this theory.The ending of the nuclear weapons program is being explained largely by the rise of the MAD-concept which renders the acute need of nuclear weapons in Sweden void.  Liberalism on the other hand considers this a logic step due to the better established UN that is playing a larger role now than in the 1940s. In conclusion, realism does a better job explaining the start of the nuclear weapons program, while liberalism explains the end of it more efficiently. The contribution this thesis has to the research of political science can be seen mainly in three areas.

Recent changes in Swedish law suggest new groups of ?desired? labor migrants, which international students is an example of. Despite this, international students in Sweden have received little previous attention in the literature. The current study focused on international master students? experiences of job searching in Sweden and challenges they face in job searching, recruitment, and workplaces.

The popularity of vegetated, or green roofs, has grown over the past years due to their potential function of maintaining urban environment quality. The aim of this study was to investigate if substrates with different organic material, peat and charcoal, with two contents (3 or 6 weight%) influenced the growth of the cuttings during the first critical period of the establishment. Biochar is used as amendment to agricultural soils and has, theoretically, many of the properties suitable as organic content in green roof-substrates. Peat is one of the materials that is commercially used in green roof industry. The substrate has been treated with different amounts of water.

During whole-tree harvesting, there is a risk that the soil will become impoverished of nutrients. To prevent this, nutrients are returned to the harvested site as wood ash. This action also reduces the risk of soil acidification. Nevertheless, the ash does not result in any increase of tree growth if it is added on mineral soils, which is where the measure is most commonly used in Sweden. Due to the lack of growth response, the interest from landowners is small, which is why ash amendment today is not done enough to compensate for the need.