Dichotomy in change ? a study of how the relationship in terms of power between politicians and civil servants in local government is affected by the transition to a system without branch committees.

During the last decade a number of studies have been published that investigate how the most fundamental aspect of political organization, the regime type, affects population health. The results unanimously show that citizens of democracies live longer and healthier lives than citizens of non-democracies. Many explanations for this have been suggested, among these are that democracies redistribute more and invest more in salutogenic resources, and that the tendency of dictatorships to control the media negatively affects the ability to spread information crucial to public health. When these mechanisms are controlled for, however, it turns out that democracy has a large residual correlation with for example life expectancy, which suggests that other mechanisms are also involved.In this paper two new mechanisms regarding the possible psychosocially mediated health effects of the regime type are investigated, namely political repression, and the possible negative effects this might have on the levels of chronic stress, and autonomy, which connects to a large previous literature in social epidemiology. In the paper an ecological cross-country design is used and country-level data, provided mainly by the World Bank and Freedom House, is analyzed with a simple multiple OLS-regression model.

The purpose of this master's thesis is to discuss how young people view their possibilities of exercising power and influence in Swedish society and politics. To accomplish this we have used several different sorts of relevant material. As an introduction, we review the development of the Swedish research concerning youths, with focus on the development in the last two decades of the twentieth century. We continue with a study of important Swedish youth-political documents, especially of the Government Bill På ungdomars villkor: Ungdomspolitik för demokrati, rättvisa och framtidstro On the terms of the youth: Youth-policy promoting democracy, justice and hopes for the future. The Bill is the foundation of a new youth-policy in Sweden.

The national spatial planning guidelines and the subsequent legal regulation in the Natural Resources Act and the Environmental Code has been a part of the Swedish planning system for almost 40 years. In the recent years, critics have claimed that the regulations are outdated and does not work the way it was intended. This paper examines closer why it is perceived that the regulations does not work, with a focus on how the national interests are managed in the municipal planning. Why is the national interests not applied in the municipal planning as intended? Is the error in the system or in the implementation of it? The aim of this essay is to study the gap between theory and practice by studying how the land management provisions in the Environmental Code is applied in five selected municipalities. The aim is also to find interesting issues for futher studies of the topic.

Bakgrund:I den svenska skolan har det under en längre tid funnits olika pedagogiska, beslutsbaserade rollspel i undervisningen. Nu har skolan digitaliserats, vilket har öppnat upp för datorspel i undervisningen, främst inom matematik och språkliga ämnen. Samhällskunskapen är ett mer komplext ämne att reproducera och därför har inte dataspel i undervisningen använts i lika stor utsträckning. I och med den tekniska utvecklingen, kan spel återskapa mer komplexa företeelser och har därför möjligheten att inkluderas i fler skolämnen än tidigare. Spelindustrin är idag i en position, grafiskt och tekniskt, där det går att simulera hela länder, historiska händelser och hela ekonomier med varierande komplexitet.

AbstractThe purpose of my study was to examine how four social studies teachers in upper secondary school interprets the democratic educational mission and core values, and if they believe that the same values are tools to influence the students' democratic approach and if they think it is possible. It is also the study's minor purpose to make an analysis of my findings and previous research in the area to explain any similarities or differences in the social studies teacher's interpretation and practice of the democratic educational mission and core values. I used qualitative semi-structured interviews as a method in which the interview questions were based on my research questions. The two criteria I had for my sample of respondents was that there would be social studies teacher at a upper secondary school and that I wanted to have two of each sex. Their interpretation and how they think they practice the democratic educational mission and core values are similar.

Background: Several accounting scandals have caused a development from rules-based to principles-based regulation. Swedish municipalities follow the principle-based recommendations issued by RKR (The Council for Municipal Accounting). An explicit requirement of component depreciation has been introduced prior to 2014. The principles-based regulatory framework raises some choices regarding the introduction and demands that professional judgments are made. There is some risk that comparability decreases.

A general topic underlying this master thesis is how the public library is being transformed through the subversion and re-articualtion of meaning according to different discourses. The aim of the study can be divided in to levels of analysis. At the first level, the aim is to investigate how categories such as users, needs and vision are articulated in a specific case ?the visionary project Garaget in Malmö, a project which in part include a public library inspired by Idea Store. The next level of analysis sets out to explore how the case of Garaget is related to a totalizing discursive struggle over meaning within the element the public library.

The purpose of the essay is to analyze the welfare state from a gender perspective. Further, the paper analyzes and critically examines three different normative solutions provided by Irish Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and Jürgen Habermas for the realization of a welfare state that includes women.Habermas argues that the welfare state has created a situation of dependency and state paternalism which reduces both individual and collective self-determination. Young follows Habermas? argument. She argues for a political climate where justice is reduced to the distribution of material goods rather than the elimination of underlying relations of domination and gender specific patterns.

Our purpose with this master thesis is to look at school libraries in two separate municipal contexts and with the help of case studies try to reach understanding of how the municipal organisation in general influences and co-operates with day to day reality. In order to achieve this objective we have posed the following questions: What importance are school libraries given in relation to questions of overall management and goals in the greater organisation? How are resources distributed and management allocated in the two cases? How are the various school libraries in the two municipalities organised when it comes to workload, employee role assumption and teamwork? In the section dealing with theory and previous research we present the theoretical viewpoint and the literature of importance for our subject. This includes a short history, reports and laws, and also some research and theory on school library organisation. Our method has been to study the circumstances in two separate municipalities, Varberg and Växjö.

The European Union is seen as democratic, and one of the criteria for a democratic decision process is that it must be fully transparent for the citizens. That is the only way for them to make their own decisions about political issues, and it is only possible as long as the citizens have access to relevant and reliable information. However, this is not always the case within the European Union, since it is often difficult to get a hold of different documents of the institutions, and since the civil servants to a great extent are forbidden to give away any information..

The purpose of the essay is to analyze the welfare state from a gender perspective. Further, the paper analyzes and critically examines three different normative solutions provided by Irish Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and Jürgen Habermas for the realization of a welfare state that includes women.Habermas argues that the welfare state has created a situation of dependency and state paternalism which reduces both individual and collective self-determination. Young follows Habermas? argument. She argues for a political climate where justice is reduced to the distribution of material goods rather than the elimination of underlying relations of domination and gender specific patterns.

This essay examines the 1962 Swedish parliamentary debate preluding the proposition to introduce a uniform compulsory education for all Swedish children. The proposition aimed at ending the previously heterogeneous educational system and replace it with a more equal and democratic system.A widespread debate ensued, regarding the status of Christian religious education (kristendomskunskap) and its new emphasis on scientific objectivity. This essay will examine the relative position of Christianity within the new uniform school system, as it was articulated by the members of the Swedish parliament. This analysis will be achieved through the use of a discourse analytical study of the parliamentary records, the recorded motions and bills. From these records a substantial disparity in the parliamential members articulation of the concept of Christianity can be ascertained, even within the discourse of an educational regime.

This master?s thesis attends to a debate in the Swedish daily press concerning the public library which arose after the Swedish Moderate Party?s publication of their cultural political document Kulturen 2.0. This document contains a number of standpoints, of which three directly concern the public library: charges on book loans, libraries on contract and politically balanced purchase policy. In all, 28 articles are examined by means of an idea and ideological analysis. The purpose is to find out what is behind the conflicts surrounding attitudes about the public library's mission and activity in an era of needs for change.

In December 2008 the municipal council in Nybro, decided that the municipality shouldreduce the budget for food service. The budget should be reduced by 2 100 000 SEK.They decided that the children- and education committee, and the care committee would haveto lower their budget with 1 264 000 SEK respectively 636 000 SEK. The change have to bedone under two years, 60 % should be done under 2009 and 40 % under 2010.As a result of the decision, many kitchens have to become kitchens that only serve food, notcook it. This will result in preschool staff and nursing staff take over some of the tasks fromthe kitchen staff. The municipal council also decided that entrepreneurs could take over one(later two) cooking areas.A kitchen that serves food means that there isn?t any cooking involved.