AbstractC-level in Political Science by Christoffer Odén, vt-08?Traditionalism versus Modernism. The Ideology Debate in Left-Socialist Party Today?Instructor: Mats LindbergThe purpose with this essay is to describe the ideology debate in Left-Socialist Party between traditionalists and modernists. This essay have the following questions: 1 ) What are the differences between traditional and modern politics in the Left-Socialist Party? 2 ) What is similar between traditional and modern politics in the Left-Socialist Party? My method is to analyse the Left-Socialist Party programme from 2004 and analyse a programme from the modernist organisation Vagval Vanster.

The aim of this essay is to examine whether democracy in St Petersburg isconsolidated or not. Since studies of democratic transition have been rarelyconducted on post-communist cities, this study seems fruitful. Using the Linz andStepan theory, where democracy is considered consolidated when it has become?the only game in town? and Orttung's three criteria legitimacy, politicalpolarisation and policy effectiveness; this essay analyzes people's attitudes,political behaviour, the rule of law and civil society in St Petersburg. Theory isused to interpret the material mainly consisting of two interviews and newspaperarticles.

The aim of this thesis was to examine what stories the Swedish periodical Fokus write about in their main reportage, "Veckans reportage", and how they express their stories. Through the survey we wanted to examine which topics, areas and actors that occurred in the texts during the year of 2008. We studied Fokus in two parts. In the first part we read every "Veckans reportage" published in 2008, which is 43 reportages, and categorized them into groups based on topics, areas and actors. The result helped us to pick two representative texts to analyse further.

In the beginning of this century United Nations expressed their concern about the lack of female participation in politics through a number of resolutions and conventions. To ensure sustainable development and democracy, United Nations argued the importance of women?s participation in every level of politics within a state.Burma is a country that is in the middle of an ongoing democratization process and women are not considered to participate in this process. The purpose of this thesis is therefore to analyze the experience of politically involved Burmese women in their political participation progress.This study has been realized through semi-structured interviews with nine Burmese women, in both Thailand and Burma. The questions that have been asked are about what societal and cultural barriers women meet when they are, or want to be, political involved, both from the society and within their own political organizations.

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 Oresund Region, consisting of the Swedish county of Scania and the Danish islands of Sealand, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm, is widely recognised as a successful example of European cross-border co-operation. The purpose of this region building project is to form a cross-border fully integrated functional region in order to accomplish a high level of economic growth and employment.This thesis argues, by the means of discourse analysis, that the project can be viewed as a kind of post-politics, defined as a politics that under a neoliberal hegemonic consensus strives to manipulate citizens (and to redefine them as consumers and investors) into better economic performance.This manipulation is carried out by extensive discourse production aimed at convincing people that the Oresund Region exists, that it is a successful region, and that the people who inhabit it are also successful. The deliberate vagueness and contradictory character of the Oresund discourse is investigated and explained as a discursive strategy to incorporate as many views and desires as possible..

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.

The central goal of this study was to compare statements of the minister of migration in power in 1994 with those of the minister of migration in 2006. The statements reflect two peaks of refugee immigration in connection to the war in former Yugoslavia and the present war in Iraq. The study analyses the statements in a critical discourse analysis framework. More specifically the aim was to find out if there were any discursive differences in these statements and how they might manifest themselves in society. The material was composed of 12 texts, 6 for each period originating from Swedish newspapers and from the ministers' public speeches.

When discussing local development attention is often given to the problems involved. Factors like decreasing population and inadequate infrastructure are two examples. Local politics has, however, lately been argued to have possibilities to affect its own development and its chances to achieve growth. Some of the most important factors from this debate are to make a community attractive for people and companies, committed leadership, the local business world with entrepreneurialism and a good business climate. These factors serve as a starting point for this discussion where focus is on the possibilities to achieve growth on the local level and the politics that is used for this purpose.To illustrate the chances to affect local growth I apply the theoretical perspective of regime theory and thereby examine the governing coalitions "power to" govern and not "power over" as the earlier theoretical perspectives in the area.

This study is called When the ice of the Arctic melts is the world defrosting? and written by Rebecca Fröling.The purpose of the study is to investigate how the concept ?security? is used in the Swedish arctic strategy and why the concept is described in that way. The debate of the concept ?security? has been going on for years, but the debate is still present today. What we put in to the concept is operative for how we regard and discuss security and security politics.To analyze the strategy I used two theories, one with a traditional approach and one with a critical approach to security: Realism and Copenhagen School.The method that has been applied to the study is qualitative content analysis, to be able to analyze the text on the depth.

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.

In the post Cold-War era, world politics was transforming itself through its emerging complex issues such as terrorism and influential and interdependent actors such as the European Union. In this new era, the European Union was developing its Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar both to present a coherent and unified EU policy and to prove its political potent in order to become an influential actor on world politics. On the other side, security environment was also transforming its content through emerging actors and issues. As one of the most prominent actors of the world politics, the EU was influenced by the transformation of security environment, whose economic ?soft power? proved necessary but insufficient for being a global power in this emerging security environment.

This paper examines the ideological content of the compulsory school policy of the Swedish Liberal Party. The aim of the study is to investigate whether the Liberal Party does really represent a liberal policy for the compulsory school, or if it is more accurately described as conservative. The analysis is carried through by two separate critical examinations of the Liberal Party motion on school politics to the parliament and the Conservative Party motion on school politics to the parliament respectively. A comparison is then made between the ideological contents of the two documents. The specific party policies are linked to universal definitions of liberalism and conservatism with the help of an analytical tool consistent of a series of educational philosophies.

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.