The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

The present study examines the demolition of a house on Hammarkulletorget in 1996 and the discourse of Hammarkullen, Gothenburg(Sweden), drawn from the perspective of historicization [?historisering?]. I have examined how the past played role inpresentations of Hammarkullen and how the past affected the decision to demolish a house. By examining which role the neighbourhood?spast time played in the perception of the neighbourhood, the thesis aims at providing a better understanding of howthe past can influence and legitimize major changes in the urban environment.In the early 1980s the image of Hammarkullen as a victim of negative publicity is established and this reputation lives beyond thesimplistic and negative descriptions themselfs.

Due to a rising debate concerning corporate governance that has caused increasing demands for companies? transparency, several codes of conduct have been introduced. The Swedish Code for Corporate Governance is obliged to companies with a turnover exceeding three billions. There are companies that voluntarily apply the Swedish Code. Possible causes to this phenomenon ought to be that the code for corporate governance conveys Legitimacy through the insight into the affairs of a company the public receives, through the report of the corporate governance that is published in the annual report and on the home page of the company.

The present study examines power relations, textual genre and attitudes to the matching process in the labor market in the employment office?s opinion articles in the period 2009?2014.     The power relations that emerge in the debate articles between employers, job seekers and private employment constitute the study's main question.The theoretical starting points are taken from Fairclough?s critical discourse analysis (1992, 2001, and 2010), where the discursive practice consists of the employment office?s production of opinion articles during a recession. The social practice consists of the laws and regulations that make its actions to reduce unemployment in the society. The method is derived from Halliday?s (1994, 2002) systemic functional linguistics.

Titel: Styr lagen etiken? ? En studie om etikens betydelse för kontroversiella företag.Nivå: C-uppsats, kandidatexamen i företagsekonomi.Författare: Cecilia Andersen och Emilia Lindquist.Handledare: Agneta Sundström.Datum: 2014-05.Syfte: Syftet med detta examensarbete är att skapa förståelse för hur kontroversiella företag, genom etisk marknadsföring, kan stärka sin legitimitet i relation till företagens intressenter.Metod: Forskningsansatsen är av kvalitativ karaktär. Det empiriska materialet har samlats in genom nio semi-strukturerade intervjuer, utförda på tre olika företag, som alla är verksamma inom alkoholbranschen. Materialet analyserades med hjälp av en meningsanalys för att enklare finna likheter och skillnader.Resultat och slutsats: Lagen har en avgörande roll i det etiska arbete och styr hur etiska företagen är. Respondenterna i studien menar att genom att visa att de följer lagen, kommer legitimiteten stärkas automatiskt.Studiens bidrag: Ger en ökad förståelse för hur företag kan arbeta med etisk marknadsföring för att stärka legitimiteten.

Bakgrund: De verksamheter som bedriver miljöfarlig verksamhet enligt miljöbalkenär anmälnings- eller tillståndspliktiga. Dessa företag ska lämnamiljöinformation i förvaltningsberättelsen. Tidigare studier visar attföretagen inte följer denna regel fullt ut. Som förklaring till företagensval av att miljöredovisa eller att inte redovisa sin miljöpåverkan användervi oss av legitimitetsteorin och intressentteorin.Syfte: Syftet med undersökningen är att för år 2013 se hur väl detillståndspliktiga företagen i Dalarna följer lagen om miljöredovisningoch vilka faktorer som kan förklara deras tillämpning av lagen.Metod: Studien bygger huvudsakligen på kvantitativ metod med inslag avkvalitativ metod. Vi använder en deduktiv ansats för att skapa fyrahypoteser om omsättning, branschtillhörighet, revisionsbyrå ochskuldsättningsgrad.

This thesis tackles the subject concerning arguments as a conceptual basis forunderstanding the general strategy of the European Union Commission on issuesconcerning EU-harmonized environmental taxes, politically delicate and intergovernmentaldependent. The Commission's official proposals, communications and other relevant documents are subject to inquiry, where the theoretical bases are that harmonized environmental taxes in the EU is an issue conceived as supported by academic debate, and where the institutional arrangement in relation to an European-national dimension alongside the discursive context, allows meaningfulspace for arguments. The study makes a distinction between substantial (environmental cancerns in itself) and instrumental (other benefits, mostly economic ones) rationality as a foundation in various types of arguments.The study's main findings are that the Commission's official documents over the past 20 years, have been trying to keep a strong image of reason and knowledge based arguments for an EU-wide environmental tax reform. In particular, the types of arguments tend to appeal to the Member States by stressing the instrumental rationality in a European environmental tax reform, indicating the value of good arguments as a part of the Commission's main strategies. In sum, this may have further theoretical suggestions concerning questions of environmental and elimate change policies in a European context or other more general studies relying on theoretical assumptions of logics of argument, Legitimacy or studies of motives behind action strategies in politically sensitive issues such as taxation at supranationallevel..

Due to the forest industry downsizing, many communities in rural forest regions in Canada and Sweden are facing problems to survive. In order to create community sustainability, resilience and well-being in remote forest regions, the view on the forest resources has shifted towards multiple use, through the concept of sustainable forest management (SFM). Beside the economic and ecological elements of sustainability, the social forest values are needed, contributing to the human well-being, local participation, stakeholder collaboration, human rights and cultural connection. In this thesis the embodiment of the social component of SFM within Prince Albert Model Forest (Canada), and Vilhelmina Model Forest (Sweden) will be examined. Being partners and facing similar challenges as rural boreal forest regions, the two model forests are compared through analysis of projects and activities, conducted interviews and organization documents. Looking at projects mentioned as successful by the interviewees, they all have elements from the social values of SFM. The direction can be explained by the introduction of the Forest Communities Program in Canada, demanding the Model Forests to work towards community stability and resilience, the Model Forest organization concept itself and the way global focus are increasing around social forest values. In the future, it may be important that the role of the MFs enable some kind of political authorization and Legitimacy in order to improve conflict solving and indigenous rights equality.

Recently, there have been intense discussions about the humanities and their role in society. Internationally, as well as in a Swedish context, the humanities have been regarded to be in a state of crisis. However, these discussions usually demonstrate a lack of historical perspectives based on thorough empirical research. The notion of a crisis needs to be historicized.In this study, a case is being examined where the relationship between science and society was renegotiated. In the context of World War II, a discourse has been identified in a borderland between science and politics through an analysis of Swedish journals and anthologies during the time period 1937-1947.

AbstractEssay in Political Science, autumn 2010. ?ALBA ? A regional integration project with good conditions?? Autor: Anna Sjögren. Course: Political Science, C-level, Tutor: Sten Berglund An essential part of the political science research on regional integration has been about why states join economic unions and what forces drive the process of integration. This essay is a case study on the Latin American regional integration project called ALBA.

Problem: Small companies dominate the skin care industry, and they also face moredifficulties, constraints and resistance in strategy implementation and sustainabilitywork than other operators. Still, the trend of sustainability strategies increasesignificantly precisely in this industry.Purpose: The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge to the field ofsustainability strategies and motives for the implementation of them in smallercompanies who engage with skin care, in Sweden.Framing of a question: Why do some smaller Swedish companies in the skin careindustry choose to implement sustainability strategies in their business?Literature: The literature functions as a framework for the study and is considered toidentify the possible reasons why small companies choose to implement sustainabilitystrategies or not. The literature is collected before the empirical data.Method: This paper is constructed by a qualitative method approach. The empiricaldata were collected through interviews, by telephone, personal meetings and email,which were then transcribed and the interpreted by a model, which the authors havecreated.Conclusion: Smaller companies are often met by larger resistance and an until up tothe present slowly emerging industry with vague rules and controls as well as ancomparative knowledge of what is good and what is not.

The main purpose of this thesis is to analyze laws that completely prohibit abortion through a legal philosophical perspective. To demonstrate that abortion blanket bans cannot be seen as legally legitimate, the author has completed a literature study where she uses Robert Alexy?s ?Concept of Law? to analyze abortion laws both in general, and in Nicaragua in particular.Based upon Alexy?s ?Concept of Law? the author has identified three relevant key elements ? social efficacy, the argument from injustice and correctness of content - which she uses in her analysis. In order to apply these three elements on the total abortion ban, she then uses four different analysis tools - feminist theory, Human Rights, deontology analysis and right analysis. This has enabled a thorough analysis of the total ban on abortion that has demonstrates that such laws cannot be considered legitimate.By highlighting the human rights violations the law entails, one can conclude that the law has a social impact.

Despite the fact that mandatory financial auditing has been abolished for small private public companies in Sweden we still see this service being used by these firms. Earlier research, papers and published articles tend to focus on the abolishment of the mandatory audits seen from the accountant?s point of view. There has however been less emphasis on the fact that 85 percept of the companies relived from the mandatory audits still utilises this service. We think that we have found a new and until now unexplored angel on this subject, and the purpose of our study has been to explore what the Swedish bank officials and what the Swedish Tax Agency?s officials think that they have to gain from a mandatory financial audit.The scientific method used in the study is deduction due to the fact that existing theories has been used to form the hypothesis.

AbstractWorking as a lawyer demands not only legal skills, but also ethical ones due to the involvement with humans. The area of ethics is far from as regulated as the area of law is. The reasons for this are both historical ? as the area of ethics is, in comparison with the practice of law, a relatively new area, especially combined with the traditional work of lawyers ? and technical, since ethics is an area that seems difficult to regulate due to its adopting skills. Ethics looks different depending on which work area it addresses; who you ask; and in what situation it shall be enlightened.

The main purpose of this thesis is to analyze laws that completely prohibit abortion through a legal philosophical perspective. To demonstrate that abortion blanket bans cannot be seen as legally legitimate, the author has completed a literature study where she uses Robert Alexy?s ?Concept of Law? to analyze abortion laws both in general, and in Nicaragua in particular.Based upon Alexy?s ?Concept of Law? the author has identified three relevant key elements ? social efficacy, the argument from injustice and correctness of content - which she uses in her analysis. In order to apply these three elements on the total abortion ban, she then uses four different analysis tools - feminist theory, Human Rights, deontology analysis and right analysis. This has enabled a thorough analysis of the total ban on abortion that has demonstrates that such laws cannot be considered legitimate.By highlighting the human rights violations the law entails, one can conclude that the law has a social impact.