The purpose of this master thesis is to examine some information aspects of decision-making in Swedish municipal committees. Which are the information needs and how do they emerge? How is the needed information sought and received and which are the sources? How do the members of the committees use information when making decisions? To answer these questions qualitative interviews were conducted with four politicians (two chairpersons representing the political majority and two vice-chairpersons representing the opposition) and three officials in a municipality with a population of about 50 000. The politicians were interviewed in capacity of decision-makers, whereas the officials from the local administration are of interest through their decision-supportive role, which includes providing of reports and other information. The examination indicates that even if the conditions to some extent differ between the committees, the administration is highly influential: Notions and proposals about action may come from inhabitants, organizations, politicians etc., but are handled by the administration, which often is the problem formulating actor, through which the informational needs nearly always are canalized.

This thesis is an analysis of articles published in the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds concerning the escalated conflicts within the Fatah movement during the summer in 2004.The study is done on the basis of the assumption that The Palestinian Authority (PA) expects the domestic media institutions to support the official objectives and, in this case most important, the national unity. My investigation reveals that the articles are indeed highly adjusted and purposed to unify and to hinder further growing instability, both in the politicalsphere and in the streets. The message urging for unification under the PA is constantly, directly and indirectly, repeated throughout the articles by the choice of themes and references as well as by the choice of individuals and organisations delivering statements..

The purpose of this Bachelor?s thesis was to explore how principals and school administrators work to develop their school libraries. To narrow our area of study we chose to only include gymnasiums run by the municipality and conducted four semi-structured interviews with two principals and two heads of upper secondary school. We formulated two questions: (1) what perceptions of the school library and its functions can be found among our four respondents? And, (2) how do they work with developing the school library? As a theoretical framework we used Loertscher?s taxonomy of the school leader.

Today most people are in agreement that the media industry is in crisis. Many newsrooms cut down on staff. At the same time the PR industry is growing. We wanted to research if this could affect the unbiased and independent news in our news media today. Today's newsrooms receive a lot of press releases every day.

The fact that we apprehend certain phenomena as more convenient than others generate questions about what constitute and decide what we think of as normal and appropriate. The aim of this thesis is to explore the immense conception of power and authority through a narrower approach that focuses on the EU.With this in mind I examine the penetration of the neo-liberal ideology in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to see if there are any implications for hegemony. This is achieved through a discourse analysis which is strengthened with empirical cases of EU policies.The result of the discourse analysis of selected parts of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe reveals that there are in fact tendencies which indicate that our society and reality is dominated by a neo-liberal hegemonic discourse. Subsequently the contemporary discourse broadly infiltrates the entire European Union, and therefore also its member states..

Globalisation and diversity has increased the presence of different languages in Swedish municipalities. As the local administrative authorities with responsibility for the public crisis management, how are these municipalities coping with crisis communication recipients that are not speaking Swedish? Through an inductive approach, this thesis formulates a theory of crisis communication adaptation by studying Swedish municipalities with a large part of inhabitants with foreign backgrounds. This thesis finds that municipalities that are not adapting their crisis communication to non-Swedish speakers follows a discourse that paints a picture of these recipients as at least understanding the Swedish language. Municipalities that do adapt their crisis communication have drawn lessons from local incidents that complements this discourse.

Staden Sulaymaniyah ligger i den kurdiska delen av Irak och har på senare år utvecklats då många valt att flytta från landsbygden till den centrala delen av staden. Nybyggandet sker under tidspress och långsiktigt hållbara lösningar prioriteras inte. Målet är att ta fram ett hus som är anpassat för majoriteten av befolkningen och samtidigt få ett bra och energieffektivt inomhusklimat. En faktainsamling genomfördes för att ge bakgrundsinformation till projektet. Vidare gjordes en planlösning till huset i AutoCAD vilken har använts som grund till utformningen av huset och smarta lösningar.

Vid operation av primär total höftplastik finns det olika metoder för postoperativ smärtlindring. En tidigare genomförd studie på ett mellansvenskt sjukhus (nedan kallad ?höftprojektet?) visade att ?Local infiltration analgesia? (LIA) initialt minskade postoperativ smärta, underlättade mobilisering samt förkortade vårdtiden, jämfört med spinalt morfin. I denna studie genomfördes en långtidsuppföljning av höftprojektet med mätningar efter 6 respektive 12 veckor. Studiegruppen hade fått LIA vid operationsslutet och kontrollgruppen spinalt morfin.

The purpose of this essay was to overview the conflicts regarding the exhibition space (Kunsthalle) Tensta Konsthall during 2003 and 2004, in order to gain an understanding of the following: why the conflict started, if anyone exceeded their authority, how the case has been reviewed in the press, what kind of value judgements lay behind the actions and why this case has received so much attention. By studying mainly press material and political documents it has been made clear that Tensta Konsthall?s location in an ill reputed suburb of Stockholm has been the cause for its exposure to different demands and expectations compared to other similar exhibition spaces. Further the essay deals with questions raised by the conflict in the intersection of culture and politics..

On the basis of theoretical knowledge about the complex of problems which can occur in an implementation of a collaboration project, the purpose of this essay is, to examine how representatives on each authority relate to and manage collaboration as a work method, the awareness of problems within the organisations that collaborate, and the preparedness around how to manage problems with collaboration. "Unga vuxna" is a collaboration project between Kalmar county council and all 12 municipalities in the county council. More specifically it is a cooperation project between psychiatry and social services. Theories used in this essay are professor Berth Danermarks studies about collaboration, and social psychologist Jay Hall?s theory about capability.

Staden Sulaymaniyah ligger i den kurdiska delen av Irak och har på senare år utvecklats då många valt att flytta från landsbygden till den centrala delen av staden. Nybyggandet sker under tidspress och långsiktigt hållbara lösningar prioriteras inte. Målet är att ta fram ett hus som är anpassat för majoriteten av befolkningen och samtidigt få ett bra och energieffektivt inomhusklimat. En faktainsamling genomfördes för att ge bakgrundsinformation till projektet. Vidare gjordes en planlösning till huset i AutoCAD vilken har använts som grund till utformningen av huset och smarta lösningar.

The aim of the "Green forest management plans" is to help forest owners to reach the environmental goal of the forestry act. But are they able to do that? Is it possible to plan preservation of species on single estates? How do single-estate-plans differ from a landscape analysis and how can the landscape approach be used in operative planning? This work was initiated to give an answer to these questions. This study was made in a landscape of 4200 ha in Östergötland county, south-eastern Sweden. A lanscape analysis was made and then compared to the Green forest management plans in the same area. The nature conservation areas (areas that were set aside to be managed with environmenatl goals) differed quite a lot between the two alternatives.

Acquiring a former station building can mean that the property owners must familiarize themselves with a lot of planning and building regulations. After the new Planning and Building Act code into force in 2011, the responsibility lie on the developer to ensure laws and regulations. Based on the regulatory framework that is available occurs sometimes balance issues, between care requirements and building codes. The station building in Ormaryd was acquired in 2009 by two individuals who intended to accommodate office and retail space in the building. In doing so a new local plan of the area was established, including regulations on how the building could be used. By including road safety and noise, the risk was not considered appropriate to use the station building for housing.

This Bachelor's thesis in Environmental Science studies the quality of an index of performance measurement of Swedish municipalities' sustainability governance offered by the environmental magazine Miljöaktuellt. Executed for six consecutive years, this evaluation is arguably the most comprehensive and widely spread local sustainability assessment in Sweden. Contextualizing this quantitative measurement tool in the paradigm of New Public Management, the research questions posed are: 'to what extent does the index employed by Miljöaktuellt correspond to the requirements of a set of quality criteria for sustainability assessment?' and 'is the index appropriate as a measure of, or a goal for, Swedish municipalities' internal sustainability efforts?' Through the perspective of evaluation theory, Miljöaktuellt's index is seen as a performance evaluation, thus categorizing this study as a meta-evaluation. Through a qualitative thematic approach, the index is analyzed using the 8 BellagioSTAMP-principles that were developed as tools for assessing quality of sustainability assessments as themes for the analysis.

Urbanisation has increased the distance between the urban and the rural. Urban agriculture can be a solution to overcome that distance. The characteristic of urban agriculture is the intensive production in intra urban and peri-urban areas. Until 1950s food production in cities was an important part of the urban economy and the urban food supply. Since the 1950s the urban located production of food has almost ceased in Sweden, partly as a result of cheap food imports.