The purpose of this study was to examine participants' experiences and descriptions of a municipal activation program, and how participants perceive their opportunities for influence on their own needs and requirements. The results are based on statements from six semi-structured, individual interviews conducted by the qualitative method. Empowerment, paternalism and social capital are among the study's theoretical frame of reference. The main results show that more participants are critical of aspects of coercion and involuntary willingness in participation. Motivation for participation seems to mainly be linked to whether the activity is experienced as meaningful, as well as to the attitude of the staff.

Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva och analysera sju kommuners soliditetsutveckling under 2006 till 2010 samt analysera om ett samband finns mellan låg soliditet och genuin sårbarhet. I uppsatsen används en blandning av kvantitativ och kvalitativ metod för att få en djupare förståelse kring kommuners soliditet och dess soliditetsutveckling. Insamlad sekundärdata kommer från böcker, artiklar, uppsatser och lagar. Primärdata samlades in vid en intervju samt genom sju kommuners årsredovisningar.Ett lågt antal invånare i en kommun behöver inte resultera i en låg soliditet. En befolkningsminskning behöver inte leda till en minskad soliditet.

The management of water resources and waste water varies between the countries of the EU. For many years, a large part of the water in Europe has been contaminated by, among other things, insufficiently treated waste water and emissions from agriculture. The EU Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC and the Urban Waste Water Directive 91/271/EEC are intended to harmonize fresh-water management and waste water management within the whole EU, aiming at safeguarding drinking water of good quality and a high quality of all water within the EU today and in the future. There are however some problems concerning the waste-water directive. One problem is the huge investment needed in Slovakia to fulfil the demands of the waste-water directive for waste-water management in larger communities (with more than 2000 inhabitants).

The main purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the democratic situation and developement in Malung and Nyköping, through a perspective of participatory and deliberative democratic theories. The questions I?ve examined are On what priorities the actions of developing democracy are built? Which positive effects have been reached and what problems have arisen? What are the solutions they have found to the problems? How does one experience the results of the experiments and actions taken? What are the similarities and differences between the two cases? and What is their relationship to the theories mentioned above?The questions are answered through interviews with four central actors in each case and examined in relation to participatory and deliberative democratic theories and in comparison of the two cases.The results have been that even if none of the cases respond to one theoretical ideal, they have touches of both theories as well as representative theory. It shows, however, that in Malung the representative democracy theory is the strongest represented in actions and politics, while in Nyköping the participatory democratic theory is stronger. In short, the most positive and negative effects respond well to the theories..

This essay will analyse how Asperger?s syndrome and autism spectrum disorder is made in two municipal high schools. I have interviewed school personnel and analysed the schools? policy documents and diagnostic manuals. In this essay AS and ASD are being deconstructed as political and ideological object and I analyse techniques in school, that makes these objects to subjects.The school?s mission is to foster and educate pupils to become desirable citizens and at the same time its aim is to provide an equivalent school.

The Saami, a Nordic indigenous people scattered over four countries, has for centuries been regarded as parts of the national populations of the countries in which they live. During the 19th century saami demands for greater influence resulted en several changes, among them the founding of a Swedish Saami Council in 1993. The council became a popularly elected, representative institution with an agenda of its own, but also a public authority answerable to the government. The decision to attribute the council this twofold role was unusual and, from a certain point of view, even controversial: it makes it difficult to determine the location of the power to act in saami-related issues and the legitimacy to do so.This essay is about how the twofold role came into existence, what it leads to and how the seemingly contradictive duality is managed. It has an institutional approach with theories concerning institutions and etnicity as well as institutional change and handling of complicated and ambiguous demands.

The aim of my study is to illuminate the borders, both spatial and aspatial, that are drawn around Europe in swedish politics by using the word in question in different ways. To increase my possibilites of comparing different concepts of Europe, I have chosen to restrict my study toFolkpartiet and Vänsterpartiet, which are the two swedish parties who seem to stand the furthest from each other on issues regarding Europe and the EU. Using theory on borders and bordering, I construct an analytical framework consisting of a separation of three categories of entities, around which borders can be drawn. In my search for both obvious and implicit ways of filling the word Europe with content, I find that both parties speak of Europe in a highly contradictory way, which both includes and excludes peripheral regions of a geographical Europe. My second conclusion is that both parties tend to associate Europe with things that are positive to them.

This thesis is a study of social movements and their possibilities to effect politics by infuencing values in society through framing. I've looked upon social movements from a functionalistic-structuralistic perspective, as if they were carriers of values from people that otherwise won't be represented in the political life. The values that the social movements are struggling for can affect both the opinion and the decision-makers since the social movements in an active way are trying ti influence the society. The thesis examines the political opportunities that social movements hav to mobilise and grow. I have looked at different factors that either improve or make the political opportunities worse.

Uppsatsen behandlar hur Sveriges syn på Estland, uttryckt i Riksdagsdebatten, förändras från 1985 till 2008, analyserat ur ett identitetspolitiskt perspektiv. Identitetspolitik innebär att självidentifikationen av en stat primärt bygger på identifieringen av "de andra" och att upprättandet av en gräns gentemot "de" skapar utrikespolitik. Undersökningen bygger på en kvalitativ analys av riksdagstryck från den berörda perioden och fokuserar på beskrivningen av Estland i debatten. Författaren menar att det under denna tid finns ett flertal tydliga tendenser till förändring som mynnar ut i Estland går från att vara något som omnämns ytterst försiktigt och endast med bakgrund av Kalla Kriget till att bli ett europeiskt Östersjöland som är en nära samarbetspartner för Sverige. Under loppet av denna utveckling blir både Östersjön och Europa viktiga identifikationer för Sverige medan Norden står tillbaka i relativa termer..

The aim of this study about wind power planning in forest was to examine the factors and restrictions, which represent technical limitations, biodiversity, tourism and amount of energy for wind farms in Kronoberg County. Suitable areas for wind power were identified from the collected information about planning principles and potential conflicts. From the suitable areas the potential energy gain is calculated. Methods used were mainly a literature review, interviews with experts and practitioners, GIS analysis and a rough calculation of the energy gain. The section of information and facts describes in general wind power planning and possible conflicts.

In this essay i present a study on political learning of a minority ethnicity whose political history in the institutional form began in 1993. The ethnicity in question is the Sami?s and in 1993 the Sami Parliament was established. The establishment of the Sami parliament radically changed the preconditions for political work. Sami politics came to be pursued in an organized manner in the form of a public authority and democratically elected units.

This bachelor thesis deal with the Soviet submarine U-137 and it's grounding inthe Swedish archipelago outside the city of Karlskrona and one of Sweden?slargest naval-bases. The actions that took place in October 1981 were specialbecause of the clear violation of Swedish territory. When the Swedish authoritieslater suspect nuclear armament onboard the crisis gets worse. In the thesis wehave examined the Swedish politicians and military and their behaviour duringthe crisis.

This essay examines the recent electoral success of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the Swedish municipal election in 2006 and 2010. By using statistical methods it aims to explain which of three contradicting theoretical frameworks best can explain how a populist radical right party could penetrate one of the most stable party systems in the world. The theoretical approaches tested in this essay are: a demand-side, an external supply-side and an internal supply-side approach. By using theoretically anchored proxies to determine the effect of the contradicting theoretical approaches this essay concludes that the internal supply-side explanation measuring the local party organizational ability of the SD had the most substantial effect when it comes to explaining their recent electoral success in the Swedish municipalities, as opposed to a more commonly believed demand-side driven explanation..

The aim of this essay is to investigate the situation for democracy in China. The study raises two main questions. They are as follows: Are there obstacles to a democratization process in China? and Are there openings when it comes to a gradual change for democratization in China? The theoretical framework consists of Robert A.Dahl´s Polyarchy theory, and in addition , five factors promoting democracy. Also the notion of an MDP-society (a modern, dynamic and pluralistic society) is looked upon.

New political parties are increasing as phenomena in Swedish politics. Some of these parties have gained much attention in the media, and recent examples are Junilistan, Feministiskt initiativ and Sjukvårdspartiet. Media plays an important role for political parties as it is a way for the parties to communicate with the citizens. Therefore this essay examines how these three new parties have been pictured in media lately, and with what arguments they are discussed. This is done by argument analysis of editorials in five Swedish newspapers.