This master thesis explores the nature of public participation as a central and most current subject in the field of urban planning. A first impression exposes a seemingly unanalyzed consensus on the values and benefits which public participation provides the process of urban planning. The city may be a concern to all its inhabitants; hence knowledge and opinions of the local public are of great importance for the urban development. But is there really something new to these assumptions, and are the advantages of increased public participation in urban planning always obvious?  By using action research as a main method, I have put myself into the context of the Swedish municipality of Nacka and their projects dealing with the development of public participation.

Between 1860 and 1940 approximately 1,1 million Swedish citizens emigrated to North America. But over 200 000 of them returned to Sweden. In this essay I have tried to estimate the impact of these people on the Swedish society. To make a deeper analyze possible, I have studied the parish of Glima?kra in southern Sweden and tried to trace the immigrants? lives after their return to Sweden and thus estimate their impact on society.By statistical analysis of migrants between Sweden and USA and between the parish of Glima?kra and USA I have concluded that the result can be used as a model for Sweden on a national basis.

This thesis is a qualitative study of a new law that was applied in December 2010. The law is called Lagen om etableringsinsatser fo?r vissa nyanla?nda invandrare, and is meant to help newly arrived immigrants that come to Sweden to establish themselves in the Swedish society. The aim of the study is to see what discourses the Swedish government produces as a result of this new law. Interesting for the study is to see what happens in the implementation stage at a local level, in this case in the municipality of O?rnsko?ldsvik.Theoretically and methodologically I emanate from critical discourse theory and institutional theory.

At the moment, democracy enhancing projects can be seen everywhere on the municipal level. The purpose of this thesis is to explain how the city of Lund takes on this challenge, why they have chosen to carry out citizen councils and if these are a good way to intensify democracy and open communication channels between citizens, the administration and the elected officials.The theoretical framework consists of seven arguments for gaining citizen influence on policy, and as a counterweight three critical arguments that opponents of participatory democracy often use are added.After a survey over both the Swedish national trends in municipal renewal and the last years work in Lund, the analysis goes on showing that most of the arguments point to the disadvantage of the citizen councils. Even though legitimacy possibly is enhanced by the project, there are probably better ways to open up for more communication and intensify democracy in the local community..

This study describes how a larger investment by a private company in the northern interior can affect a municipality?s economy. The mobility to the municipality is expected to increase and some of the direct and indirect effects that this investment can implicate on their economy are discussed. The method for this study is qualitative. Interviews have been made with the initiative owner of the company LHG Learning Center and with civil servants in the municipality of Lycksele. The conclusions drawn in this study are that the establishment of LHG Learning Centers in Lycksele will include both opportunities and risks for the municipality?s future.

The name of the study means ?The short arm - a study in diversity and arm?s length in the cultural collaboration model?. Right now there is a reform in the Swedish cultural administration where the responsibility for handing out state funds and grants to cultural organizations is changing from the state government to the local regional governments. The purpose of this study is to map the organisational changes caused by the reform and investigate how this affects the regional policies concerning cultural diversity and the arm?s length principle.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how municipalities handle planning of megaprojects. The term megaproject here refers to a large project in terms of time, space, investments, numbers of agents etc. With an increasing importance of the phenomena the need of discussing the role local politics could take in this process is important.How do municipalities handle the difficulties that come with megaprojects and what roles do they take in their work with megaprojects? These empirical questions are tested on a case where the municipality of Lund works with the megaproject European Spallation Source (ESS). A theoretical question discusses the megaproject in the light of governance and government, and structures the analysis around these two important terms.Different parts of the municipality handle there part of the planning from there own logic.

With an IT outsourcing project there are many factors affecting how efficiency andquality develop in the outsourced activity. The Purpose of this study is to identifythese factors through a case study in a global company that is dissatisfied with theefficiency and quality of their outsourced helpdesk. For data collection methodsinterviews and observations were used. Interviews were conducted with people fromdifferent parts of the company in three different countries, all somehow involved inthe outsourced system. The observations were made with the outsourced company tosee how the employees work and fill information gaps that the interviews could notcover.

Det finns en trend i städer att jobba med vattenkontakt, vare sig det handlar om närhet till havet, sjön eller vattendrag. Det finns en potentiell vinst i att marknadsföra en stad med kopplingen till vatten och flera städer har lyckats med detta. Det ska dock tilläggas att det även uppstått problem med den waterfrontutveckling som har skett och det finns i olika städer erfarenhet av både vinster och förluster kopplat till waterfrontprojekt. I detta kandiatarbete har en fallstudie gjorts på en sträcka av Rönneå som flyter genom Ängelholm. Ån är i dagsläget föremål för en förstudie med mål att ta fram en åtgärdsplan för att höja värdet, skapa underlag och förutsättning för ett framtida Rönneå-projekt. Fallstudien har utgångspunkt i waterfrontutvecklingen som vuxit fram i världen sedan sent 1950-tal och efter hand spridit sig även till Sverige och Skandinavien..

The great bustard (Otis tarda) became extinct in Sweden during the mid-19th century. Globally, populations have suffered dramatic declines during the past two centuries. Recently, local populations have stabilized or increased after hunting bans and conservation efforts. Despite positive trends the species is still classified by IUCN as vulnerable (VU), mainly due to withdrawals in the distribution. The limited distribution emphasizes the need for finding ?new? areas suitable for a translocation or reintroduction.

This thesis is based on a market survey sent to the passive members of Södra skogsägarna within the scope of practice of Vimmerby. A member of Södra skogsägarna is considered passive if the member not has delivered timber to the association during the past five years. The purpose of this thesis was to obtain as much information as possible about the forest owners, to be able to interpret why the member did not choose to deliver their timber to the association. The survey was worked out in close collaboration with Södra skogsägarna to answer this question. The responses indicate that economic returns are important to the individual landowner. The price of timber is most important in a timber business and the majority of forest owners want to have a personal meeting if you can choose how you wish to be contacted by the inspector.

The aim of this essay was to determine 1. How Muslims were described in the Sweden Democrats official magazine and 2. What the purpose with their descriptions could be. The material, the SD-Courier was chosen due to it being an official magazine that was easily accessible. A hermeneutic method was used where each article selected was read several times to create a greater understanding for the material and the phenomenon within.

The purpose of this essay has been to study if the social services adjust the choice of institution to every juvenile's need of care. If the choice of institution isn't adjusted to the juveniles the institutional placement can become a way to store them rather then treat them.To accomplish the purpose of the essay we have interviewed ten social workers with different worktitles and positions. We have delimited the study to three swedish communities with varying sizes. We have analyzed the material with Bourdieus theory of "field" and "doxa" and Antonovskys theory "a sense of coherence" (SOC).We came to the conclusion that the social service adjusted the choice of institution to the juveniles needs as much as possible. Although there are a couple of factors that some times makes the best choices impossible.

It is well known that small businesses and entrepreneurs in the initial phase has difficult to gain access to external capital and bank loans. With the background of the problems that entrepreneurs face when they ask for capital has since the financial crisis the phenomenon of crowdfunding developed and evolved. Crowdfunding is an alternative source of funding for entrepreneurs to fund their ideas through small or medium-sized capital contribution from a larger amount of investors, often investors who have any kind of relationship with the entrepreneur or to the very idea. This study examined the factors that motivate and guide an investor's decisions when they select their projects. The results of the study show that the motives of the various existing forms of crowdfunding is big.

The population growth and urbanisation in low-income countries bring issues of poor living standards and miserable sanitation conditions onto the agenda. If well-functioning waste management systems were developed, this could master some of the problems. The already existing local informal waste handling system that is common in many low-income countries, needs to be developed with proper sorting and composting solutions to decrease the environmental burden and improve the overall situation in the dense cities. This master?s thesis project is performed with the intention of developing functional decentralised waste management units in the city of Pune, India.