The aim of our study is to explore the empowerment process among micro-business owners in Kayamandi, a black township of Stellenbosch in South Africa. What are the positive and negative implications for the empowerment process? Another aim is to find out the role of local and international support in this process. The theoretical framework of this study revolves around the concepts of gender, power and empowerment. Our methods are qualitative interviews and observations.

This is an interview based qualitative case study on two Women's Migrant Associations in Malmoe, which I interpret as being part of a women's movement, with characteristics of a new social movement. The aim of this study is to get a deeper understanding on how the collective identity is being constructed, in this women's movement where the membership is not based on an exclusive ethnic identity.I make a two dimensional analysis that departs from a social constructivist underpinning, including the theories Transversial Politics, Postcolonial feminism and New Social Movement Theory.First I analyze the construction of collective identity from the external social and cultural context, and get confirmed that the collective identity of the movement is based on a common experience of social exclusion and a plurality of actions that aims to fight the structural injustices based on gender and ethnic discrimination. Secondly I analyze how the collective identity is being constructed and maintained from the interactions between the members of the movement, from an understanding of Transversial Politics. My findings show that the members of the movement interact in a participatory democratic way which generally corresponds to Transversial Politics. According to Transversial Politics this can lead to a construction of an empowered inclusive collective identity for the members and as my empirical study confirms it also means possibilities for deconstruction of boundaries between social groups..

Abstract Mona Sahlin's dishwasher decides the election! Maybe. How journalism portraits politics is at least not fully objective with focus on societal matters. There is also a change over time indicating an up-going trend of less objective journalism. Other results of this case study indicates that politicians are more inclined to participate in journalism than before and that politics presented as scandal is increasing.The aim of this study is to investigate objectivity in political journalism over time. Using the quantitative content-analyses the study encoded 600 journalistic articles subjecting politics in the Swedish society.

This essay is about the asylum and immigration politics within the EU. Due to the heavy criticism the EU has been exposed to from among others different kind of human rights organizations I have become interested to find out what kind of asylum and migration politics right now is being formed by the member states of the union. Thus the purpose is also to see if the EU is creating a policy within this area that intends to live up to the human rights obligations.My overall research question is:Which ideas characterize the asylum and immigration politics within the EU?The theoretical perspectives of universalism and particularism are used as two analytical tools in order to understand the phenomenon I am investigating and to identify its characterizing ideas. In my essay universalism and particularism are used as opposite ideal types.

The focus of this master thesis is the library politics of the French Right wing party the National Front and the debate that followed the application of this politics. This qualitative study is divided into two parts where the critics to this politics represents one side and the adherents the other. The critics are composed by representatives from the French, Swedish and ? to some extent ? international library sector, while the adherent side is made up of politicians from the National Front and their adherents. The empiric material mostly consists of articles published in library, Right wing and daily press.

With this master thesis I wanted to find out whether Erik Fichtelius, an SVT employee, interview project with prime minister Göran Persson is acceptable according to the public service ideology. In order to do that I used Swedish newspaper articles to analyse the so called Fichtelius affair. I also gathered material on SVT and the public service ideology. The master thesis is based on sociologist Manuel Castells theories on mass media and television as presented in the Information Age. Castells claims that in our time different areas, such as politics and television, are melting together.

ABB I-R Waterjet Systems combines the robotics and motion expertise of ABB Flexible Automation with high-pressure intensifier/pumping technology from Ingersoll-Rand to provide and continue to develop innovative waterjet cutting systems for global markets. The purpose of this assignment is to develop a process water purifier. The purifier should be applicable as an option to ABB I-R?s production cell Cutting-Box. At first hand the process water should be purified well enough to let out in the municipal sewage system, but the ultimate solution is purifying the process water to the range that recycling is possible.

The aim of this thesis is to spread some light over the coming into being of the 2005 Pension Reform in Norway. The point of departure lies within an interest in Welfare State politics and the development in this field. Pensions constitute a cornerstone in the Welfare State. Making use of J. Kingdon´s Theory of the Agenda Setting Process, Discourse Theory and Institutional Theory the thesis seek to visualize the implications of structures, central actors and discourses on the reform processes.

This essay revolves around two questions: what is the nature of politics, and what kind of political order ensures a high rate of citizen participation? By using Cantal Mouffes theory on the political this essay shows how different understandings of the nature of politics can lead to diverging views on what forms democracy should take. Two such understandings are identified; one that sees the nature of politics as characterized by conflict and power, one that sees it as a space for cooperation in search for the common good. I trace these different ideas about the political in the parliamentary debate concerning Swedish constitutional reform. I conclude that the left-of-centre parties hold a view of the political closer to the conflict-perspective, while the green party together with the liberals/conservatives lean closer to the opposite view..

A wastewater treatment plant has the task to refine the wastewater from substances that should not be released into the environment. The decomposition process can, in a simple way, be described as follows: micro-organisms breathe oxygen and eat unwanted substances. The environment in which the micro-organism lives is known as sludge and the correct amount of oxygen available in the sludge is important for the decomposition to be effective. The oxygenation of the sludge alone stands for about 30% of the plant?s energy consumption.

ABB I-R Waterjet Systems combines the robotics and motion expertise of ABB Flexible Automation with high-pressure intensifier/pumping technology from Ingersoll-Rand to provide and continue to develop innovative waterjet cutting systems for global markets. The purpose of this assignment is to develop a process water purifier. The purifier should be applicable as an option to ABB I-R?s production cell Cutting-Box. At first hand the process water should be purified well enough to let out in the municipal sewage system, but the ultimate solution is purifying the process water to the range that recycling is possible. When investigating the different principle of purifying water, a research of different products and their manufactories was done. These different products were compared and the principle of filtration was the most applicable, as most of the products were designed for far larger applications. As the process water contains quite large amount of particles, it is necessary to perform the filtration in different steps. The process water purifier is therefore composed of a module of coarse filtration and one of micro filtration. In the module of coarse filtration the mainly amount of fibres and particles are eliminated. They are kept back in the container unit with the larger fragments and dumped with these when the container is emptied. In the module of micro filtration the filtration is performed in two steps. In the first step particles larger than 50?m are eliminated, in the second step the micro filter is setting the range of purifying, in this case 10?m.

The Swedish regions are new phenomena, from the start from the new regionalism which started in the 1980´s. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze Region Skåne and Västra Götalandsregionen to come to a conclusion which model of region they are and want to be by using theories of regional identity and identity of politics and see similarities and differences. My research question is: Which of cultural, administrative and functional region are Region Skåne and Västra Götaland striving to construct?   The methods I have used are qualitative text- and content analysis to analyze the regions, by using theories about regional identity and identity of politics. Furthermore, I am using some statistic from SOM-institutet to analyze the regional identity in the regions.   The result show that Region Skåne is constructing a cultural region, because of their strong regional identity and that the politicians are using identity of politics to combine the citizens.

Vi gör en jämförelse av två teorier som båda behandlar hanteringen av etniska konflikter i plurala samhällen. Dessa två teorier - Consociational Democracy och Transversal Politics, är varandras motsatser och har båda implementerats i etniskt splittrade samhällen. Consociational Democracy som förespråkar mellanetnisk interaktion, har tillämpats i bland annat Bosnien- Hercegovina. Transversal Politics, som har tillämpats i Rwanda, förordar istället icke-etniska politiska plattformer. Båda dessa länder upplevde etniska rensningar under 90-talet, och har sedan dess präglats av försonings- och demokratiseringsprocesser med stor internationell närvaro.

The regime theory is the dominant paradigm in the studies of urban politics in USA. It provides a set of concepts to analyse the change from government to governance in the American local politics. The regime theory postulates that governing power in local government tends to be highly fragmented. The private sector has with its control of economic resources a major influence in shaping governing decisions. In this essay I study the regime theory in a Swedish context to investigate if the theory is pertinent when studying of Swedish local governance.

This study analyzes the political view of criminality and crime politics in three political parties in the Swedish parliament, Socialdemokraterna, Folkpartiet and Moderaterna. The study seeks to describe which kind of view these parties present on the criminality in our society. The material for this study is the ideologies that the parties descend from which are, socialism, liberalism and conservatism, the political programs of these three parties have also been studied as well as the parties proposals, political documents in the Swedish parliament. The current public debate shows that the crime politics is an attractive question and the parties may seem to have similar proposals on how to lower the criminality in our society. The theory that has been used to describe the results of the study is ?actors and structures? and the results are related to this theory as well as the theory has been used as an instrument to explain and sort the material and the results.The results of the study show that the parties are different in their views on criminality as a problem in our society.