Are different ways of life possible in a world that increasingly becomes "Westernized" or globalized? This study examines and analyzes the diverse and complex way of life that includes socioeconomical nomadism as the Irish Traveller community are availing themselves of on the island of Ireland. In a broader perspective the study of the Travellers is put in context to how modern society emerged, and what characterizes the contemporary western societies. This is to understand the way Travellers nomadic lifestyle has been constrained and how the interrelationship between the dominant society and the extended family group constituting Travellers social composition has affected their livelihoods. Their social role is considered from two identification points ? home and work.Nomadism as a phenomenon, its history, expression and possible motives are being described in this work.

The secularization theses has over the last decade been a central issue within the sociology of religion. The two classic theses has been criticized for being one-sided and only focus on the change from traditional to modern society. The intention of this study is to evaluate this critique and to discuss what is defendable in the early secularization thesis in our contemporary world.This essay?s primary purpose is to compare the secularization theses Weber?s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and Durkheim?s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. I use two analytical models, posing three levels and three categories of secularization, in order to make the comparison explicit.

Graphic profiles are a part of companies? brand expressions. The graphical values reflect the brand values the business wants to convey. They consist of different graphic elements such as logo, company sign, colour schemes, templates, rules, fonts, pictograms, formats and references to how different graphic elements should look, for example, business cards, signs and materials for websites. This thesis aims to examine why firms choose to replace their graphic profiles by studying their underlying motivations.

Background - The trend of new soccer stadiums took off in England and the three key factors of this trend where security, economic value and growth. In the early 2000s the trend came to Sweden and Växjö. The soccer stadium, Värendsvallen were old and needed Modernization.Purpose - The overall purpose of this study is to understand how Östers IF as a nonprofit organization has organized themselves when planning a large and complex project as the construction of a new soccer stadium. It also aims to portray how Östers IF has moved from concept to reality with the new soccer stadium.Method - The case study of the project organization in Östers IF where made ??using semi-structured interviews and participant observations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Martti Ahtisaari?s comprehensive reportfor Kosovo, CPS, based on theories about democracy, democratization andmulticulturalism. The essay is a way to make a contribution to research on howthe international community can contribute to democratization processes ingeneral, as the CPS gives the expression and democratization of contextscharacterized by multicultural problems in particular. In this paper, we implementa qualitative text analysis of our main material CPS. The qualitative text analysiscan be applied in studies as ours when sought contents of the text are hidden underthe surface.

Social movements have long been valuable components of the struggle for a world with true justice. Along with the changing and Modernization of society these movements also change, both in their actions as well as in the goals they want to accomplish. Technology is taking a greater part in many aspects of social life, creating new dimensions but also new social divides. This thesis examines how new social movements make themselves visible and affect the world around them through different kinds of networks. For the purpose of this study, we have chosen to study two social movements; the Zapatistas in Mexico, who have become known worldwide for carrying out the first informational revolution, and MoveOn.org, an American grassroots organization that struggles for increased democracy in the US.

Detta examensarbete har varit inriktat på att studera nyttan av att omstrukturera ett mjukvarusystem till ett moderniserat system.Frågan som skulle besvaras av detta projekt var: vad är fördelarna med komponentiseringen av ett legacysystem, med avseende på utvecklingstid som krävs för vidareutveckling av systemet? Denna fråga besvarades med hjälp av en analys av forskningsfronten över ämnet samt att en fallstudie genomfördes. Det som framkom under analysen av forskningsfronten tydde väldigt mycket på att detta var lönsamt att göra. Trots att fallet var för en specifik aktör var det väldigt relevant att genomföra det för detta projekt för att på sätt få ett praktiskt exempel som hjälpte till att besvara forskningsfrågan. Genom att genomföra dessa undersökningar besvarade vi forskningsfrågan.

This report is a market research for the company 4 Body and Mind, a start-upcompany that works with personal training online. They wanted to know if themarket for elderly care could be interesting for them to enter. This report is hence aresearch of the market for health and welfare technology in elderly care within thepublic sector in Sweden. A general fact is that the world's population is getting older.This combined with rapid growth of individuals in the age 65+ changes the demandson the elderly care in Sweden?s municipalities.

Hållbar utveckling har, allt sedan Brundtlandrapporten 1987 och Rio 1992, utgjort den fundamentala idén för långsiktiga miljö- och utvecklingspolitiska strävanden och kommit att dominera miljöpolitiken/policyn i många länder. Med utgångspunkt i Hajers teori om diskursiva strategier för ekologisk modernisering, studeras i denna uppsats (1) hur hållbar utveckling påverkat svensk miljöpolitisk diskurs samt (2) hur den diskursiva dynamiken kring skiftet i svensk miljöpolitik - från kretsloppstänkande och Agenda 21 till ekologisk modernisering - efter socialdemokratins nya vision om 'det gröna folkhemmet', bör förstås.I en fallstudie i Malmö studeras närmare hur förändringen av den miljöpolitiska diskursen återspeglas i en lokal kontext samt huruvida det är nationell styrning, lokal logik eller ömsesidiga samspel inom ramen för de diskursiva förändringarna som gör att den lokala praktiken 'blir vad den blir'..

The purpose of this essay is on the one hand to study Sub-Saharan Africa from a comparative perspective to analyze different explanations to democratization and on the other hand to compare the democratization of the most interesting cases found. To fulfil the purpose, the essay is divided into a quantitative and a qualitative part. The quantitative part starts from four different theories of democratization and thus has a deductive theory testing approach. We intend to use four theories: the Modernization theory, the theory of stable institutions as a prerequisite for democratization, political culture and ethnic diversity as an obstacle for democratization, to test how they correspond with the democratic situation in Africa, and at the same time find deviant cases. The second part of the study takes its start from an inductive perspective and examines institutions and citizens of the deviant cases.

This report is a market research for the company 4 Body and Mind, a start-up company that works with personal training online. They wanted to know if the market for elderly care could be interesting for them to enter. This report is hence a research of the market for health and welfare technology in elderly care within the public sector in Sweden. A general fact is that the world's population is getting older. This combined with rapid growth of individuals in the age 65+ changes the demands on the elderly care in Sweden?s municipalities.

The aim of this master's thesis is to describe the management of free Internet resources in three Swedish research libraries. With the starting point in the increased quantity and importance of these resources, together with reflections on the change of the concept of collection, the thesis shows how and to what extent these freely accessible Internet resources are being integrated in the day-to-day work with collection development. It also elucidates the problems with the free Internet resources from the research libraries points of view. The study is based upon analyses of collection management literature and qualitative interviews with librarians at the chosen libraries. The thesis shows that the research libraries still have not come very far in their work of integrating the free Internet resources in their collections.

AbstractWhy don't (some) regimes with formal democratic features undergo transition to democracy? Which are the internal dynamics of these regimes that can offer comprehension to this state of affairs? The main purpose of this thesis is to advance the above questions, and, on a lower level of abstraction, examine the case of Egypt. The Egyptian regime is characterized by, for instance, a multiparty-system, steps toward economic liberalization, and some level of persistent state opposition, and has been considered on the way to liberal democracy, but can still hardly be estimated as such.Thus, the thesis takes part in a theoretical framework on democratization, and further analyzes the case of Egypt on grounds of socioeconomic development, political culture, and class configuration. By this contextual approach, the thesis adduces that a low level of Modernization, an incomplete democratic political culture, and a bourgeoisie supported by the state are impending significant factors. The thesis additionally remarks on the interconnection of the adopted theories, and discusses a potential need for new theoretical propositionsA secondary aim of the thesis also gives some insights into the concurrence of regime stability and the absence of democracy in, what often could be labelled, authoritarian regimes.

Offentligt rum och vardagens politik handlar om hur 1990- talets sociala förändring, med en rörelse från ett samhälle integrerat av arbetsetiken mot ett samhälle organiserat utifrån konsumtionsestetiken, förändrar demokratins villkor i och för det offentliga rummet. Det mer preciserade syftet är att undersöka vilka konsekvenser den sociala förändringen får för utövandet av vardagens politik i det offentliga rummet. Den övergripande frågeställningen är vad ett fritt ord innebär, vad är det fritt från och för vem är det fritt? Centrala begrepp i studien är: Medborgaren, dvs. individens kollektiva identitet som politisk varelse.

The purpose of this study is to make a close and critical scrutiny of the EU Lisbon Strategy and the assumption of `sustainable growth´. A basic question is to clarify what is meant by `sustainability´ in the economic and the environmental dimension respectively, and also, to analyse the meaning of `sustainable growth´. Secondly, I try to investigate the relationship between the economical and environmental dimensions of the strategy. Are the goals of the dimensions compatible and mutually supporting or are they conflicting? By illuminating these issues the study moves towards a final set of questions: What are the arguments that encourage or counteract the Lisbon assumption of `sustainable growth´? Is the European Union approaching `sustainable growth´ looking at different economical and ecological indicators? What are the prospects for the Lisbon Strategy as a way towards global `sustainable development´?.