The purpose of this study was to examine and explain Sweden?s defence and security policy during the twenty-first century. The method that was used in this research was a case study. The material that was used were government documents focusing on this area of policy, and numerous books concerning the theoretical perspectives on international relations and defence security policy. The study is of an explaining art and the analysis explains Sweden?s security and defence policy during the twenty-first century. The analysis explains this by testing it against a liberal and a realist view on international relations. The conclusion of the study is that Sweden?s defence and security policy has been liberal during this time period ? and still is.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.

Holy war against the aberration and the newspaper terrorismHeligt krig mot förvillelsen och tidningsterrorismen This paper explores Bernhard von Beskow?s (1796-1868) conservative critique of the, for the early 19th century, new dominating voice in public matters namely the liberal press. There are competing narratives about the emerging liberal press and its critics. On the one hand the conservative critics were seen as hopeless reactionaries which acted against freedom of the press, themselves stripped of positive ideals and/or handled with little interest as footnotes in the great story of the liberal victory over its opponents. On the other hand this story has been questioned and an alternative has been presented of how to understand the conservatives and their critique of the press.

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine the ideological trends and positioning of the Swedish liberal party with the Danish social liberal party. This paper also aims to analyze the reasons behind the trends. By examine the development in these two Nordic liberal sisterparties, this paper contributes to our understanding of why and how party change is initiated. The paper commences with an intuitive notion that the Swedish party has in fact, made a lurch towards the right, during the past ten to fifteen years while the Danish party has retained their social-liberal position in the centre of the Danish political spectrum. The questions then asked are: can this hypothesis be verified empirically? If so, how can this phenomenon of divergence, be explained?The method used in this thesis is process-tracing and the empirical material does to a large extent rely on interviews with central agents as they are specified in the theory of each party.

This study is based on the will to understand the importance of a specific theory within social work. From the concept of neo-liberal governmentality, the aim is to critically examine and discuss how governance and self-governance is manifested in social work methods and interventions, exemplified by the theory cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT). This will be accomplished through an analysis of:? How governance (and self-governance) is manifested in text through the advocacy of CBT and methods based on CBT.? How (governance and) self-governance is manifested in text through the contents of CBT and methods based on CBT. The study has a deductive approach including the hypothesis that the discourses inherent in social work methods and interventions, exemplified by the theory of CBT and methods based on CBT, may be related to the West?s development of a neo-liberal concept of governance.

The purpose of this essay was to examine the role of the acquisition of the Swedish language for integration of adult immigrants given by the seven parties currently in the parliament and other players on the field. The questions were meant to bring light upon the arguments used by the different players concerning the role of the Swedish language, to enlighten which discourses that are constructed, and the contradictions that exist between these. We parted from a postmodern position and used social constructionism to back up our method and theory of analysis; discourse theory. The results revealed three different discourses concerning the role of the Swedish language in the integration process; the liberal discourse, the discrimination discourse and the social democratic discourse. The liberal discourse claims that immigrants have a responsibility to learn Swedish to be able to achieve employment and to provide for themselves.

?Liberal Democracy? is a common term in political theory, and it is used as if it had a commonly accepted referent, with both normative and descriptive content. This is certainly the case in democratic theory, where it on the one hand seems to refer to a normative democratic model; on the other hand it is used descriptively, to refer to real-life democracies. The deliberative democratic sub-field is not an exception; on the contrary, the term is frequently used albeit rarely defined; yet the concept it refers to is supposedly developed enough to allow detailed propositions about its citizens?s political behaviour.This essay is an attempt to analyze how Liberal Democracy is used by three deliberative democrats (Jürgen Habermas, John Dryzek and Stephen Elstub), in order to understand the democratic model (or models), whether normative or descriptive, they refer to.

The goal of this essay is to analyse how women belonging to a right wing political discourse talk about feminism and equality. This analysis will be used to determine if right wing feminism exists. The analysis is based on Laclau and Mouffe´s  discourse theory as the primary base. The focus is articulation, antagonism and hegmony; the central terms of Laclau and Moffe´s theroy. The material consists of five interviews with representatives of women wings of liberal political in Sweaden; Liberala kvinnor, Centerkvinnor and Moderatkvinnor.The study shows that there are different opinions regarding feminism in the liberal political discouse, and that those opinions have an antagonistic relationship.

?Liberal Democracy? is a common term in political theory, and it is used as if it had a commonly accepted referent, with both normative and descriptive content. This is certainly the case in democratic theory, where it on the one hand seems to refer to a normative democratic model; on the other hand it is used descriptively, to refer to real-life democracies. The deliberative democratic sub-field is not an exception; on the contrary, the term is frequently used albeit rarely defined; yet the concept it refers to is supposedly developed enough to allow detailed propositions about its citizens?s political behaviour.This essay is an attempt to analyze how Liberal Democracy is used by three deliberative democrats (Jürgen Habermas, John Dryzek and Stephen Elstub), in order to understand the democratic model (or models), whether normative or descriptive, they refer to.

This thesis treats the development of the European Union asylum- and migration politics and the EU member states transfer of authority to the European Union. The main purpose has been to look closer with the use of the application of theory of neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism on the European Union case. The focus will be to answer the following questions: How has the political development within EU asylum and migration policy developed through the period of The Single European Act to the ratification of the Stockholm program? And how can the chosen theory explain European countries transfer of national decision regarding asylum policy in favor of a supranational European asylum policy? Based on the available material of European Union programs and harmonization measures for this area I have attempted to understand to what extent the European Union?s development in the area of the asylum and migration politics can be explained through the theories of neofunctionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism. The result of my analysis is confirmation of the European Union development of the area of the asylum and migration policy and also a series of explanations according to the theories regarding the member states transfer of authority to the EU.

Den här uppsatsen är en diskursteoretisk analys av debattören Johan Norbergs författarskap, med ett i stora drag enbart deskriptivt syfte som ämnar på ett strukturerat vis presentera det bakomliggande meningarna i Norbergs författarskap som ett uttryck för en politisk diskurs och beskriva dem i enighet med de teorier för diskursers formerande av Laclau och Mouffe som presenteras i uppsatsens teori och metodkapitel. Uppsatsens frågeställningar handlar om att identifiera de nodalpunkter och ekvivalenskedjor som utför centrala delar av Norbergs diskurs, vilket också görs i resultatdelen. I den mån uppsatsen går utöver en deskriptiv ansats så handlar det om att utifrån en ytlig analys av tidigare forskning kring John Lockes tyckande, jämföra Norberg med detta för att se i vilken mån Norbergs påstående om sig själv som en klassisk liberal överensstämmer med resultaten av analysen. De nodalpunkter som identifieras under analysen är frihet, kapitalism, globalisering och välstånd tillsammans med förklarande ekvivalenser. Resultaten tyder också på att Norbergs beskrivning av sig själv som en klassisk liberal är riktig även om det framkommer en del ganska stora avvikelser från Lockes synsätt..

AbstractI denna kandidatuppsats används ideologikritik som metod för att, med hjälp av envänsterradikal feministisk granskning, analysera och kritisera liberal demokrati.Fokus ligger bland annat på den liberala demokratins värderingar och de grundantagandensom värderingarna vilar på. Hur ser man på människan? Vad menar man med jämlikhet?Vilken förförståelse har man för det som ses som rättvisa? Genom att göra dessagrundantaganden till undersökningsobjekt, påvisas brott och motsägelser i den liberalademokratiska logiken, som annars förblir dolda i förförståelsen. Det som tidigare har verkaticke-ifrågasättbart, naturligt och självklart kan istället ses som normativt, politiskt ochföränderligt. En diskussion förs om att liberal demokrati framställs som världsomspännandeideal och att den utgör ett självförstärkande system som återskapar sin egen logik.

National identity, multiculturalism and invisible norms are three conceptions focused on in this essay. They are discussed and analysed with the purpose of deepening deepen the understanding of their meaning. Further on they become instruments in a study of the Liberal Party's proposal for new politics of integration. My ambition is to distinguish signs of a Swedish national identity in this proposal and to interpret the party's relation to multiculturalism.The method of this essay comprises partly a literature study and partly a qualitative analysis of text.My discussion and analysis ended in an understanding of national identity and multiculturalism as complex and interrelated conceptions. I found parts of a Swedish national identity in the value of working, in the fear of the cultural unknown and of eventual anti Swedish culture, in the idea of Sweden as the best country in the world considering gender equality and in the strong defence for the Swedish language.

The aim of this paper is to empirically examine the ideological trends and positioning of the Swedish liberal party with the Danish social liberal party. This paper also aims to analyze the reasons behind the trends. By examine the development in these two Nordic liberal sisterparties, this paper contributes to our understanding of why and how party change is initiated. The paper commences with an intuitive notion that the Swedish party has in fact, made a lurch towards the right, during the past ten to fifteen years while the Danish party has retained their social-liberal position in the centre of the Danish political spectrum. The questions then asked are: can this hypothesis be verified empirically? If so, how can this phenomenon of divergence, be explained?The method used in this thesis is process-tracing and the empirical material does to a large extent rely on interviews with central agents as they are specified in the theory of each party.

This thesis examines the ideological implications of an emerging shift in human rights-issues regarding information. As Intellectual Property becomes increasingly important to the economy of developed nations previously commonly owned or unprotected information runs a real risk of becoming privatized. The World Trade Organization and its binding agreements GATS and TRIPS are subjected to a critical ideology-analysis, with special efforts to elucidate possible effects on the public service realm and its commitment as provider of free information as a human right. The result suggests that not only does a threat to information as such a right exist, but that its ideological basis however seemingly rooted in a liberal/neoliberal context actually in its express views on information deviates from liberal/neoliberal theory in many ways, and that there are theoretical inconsistencies in that same ideology..