This is a study of how democracy is affected by regionalization. The study focuses on values related to the democracy; these values are representative, transparency, participation, anchoring of decisions and accountability. The case study for this essay is the Regional Development Council of Värmland case study of Region Värmland.1997 a proposition was put forward the Swedish government about changes in responsibilities regarding four Swedish counties. It was decided that Kalmar, Gotland, Skåne and Västra Götaland County would be part of pilot project with extended regional autonomy.Region Värmland was formed at 2001 as a Region Development Council and was at 2007 transformed to a co-cooperative body. Region Värmland has an indirectly elected council, i.e.

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of Municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

Problem: Nya företag är viktiga för en kommun. Kommuner arbetar dock väldigt olika när det gäller att hantera nya företagsetableringar. Vissa kommuner arbetar mer aktivt medan andra är mer passiva och ambitionerna skiljer sig starkt åt mellan dem. Företagen har ofta fler alternativa etableringsorter. En kommuns bemötande och service spelar stor roll vid en etablering.Syfte Syftet med denna utredning är att ta fram en guide för hur en kommun bör hantera företagsetableringar.

Goods that children come in contact with on a daily basis for example toys, electronics, textiles, household items, have attracted an increased attention in recent years because of a common occurrence of residues of potentially hazardous chemical substances. Some Municipalities in Stockholm have developed plans for managing chemical risks and work systematically to phase out products containing hazardous substances. This thesis aims to contribute to an improved knowledge base for any future work with non-toxic nursery schools in Haninge. The study's focus is on the challenges encountered by conditions and problems of preschool personnel to manage chemical risks in early childhood environments. Primary data was collected through a qualitative approach based on semi-structured interviews with both the preschool staff and practitioners working in the central organization of the municipality.

We came in contact with the project "Grönplan Danderyd" that aims to create a green structure plan for a municipality of Stockholm called Danderyds kommun. Our thesis is a part of this project and makes it's contribution through the gathering and systematization of the knowledge of the functions of an urban green structure. It also makes a contribution through suggesting how this knowledge can be applied during the construction of an urban green structure plan. We found that "Stadens parker och natur", published by the Swedish National board of Housing, Building and Planning, was a recurrent source of information in the green structure plans that we studied. We saw a need of complementary additions and updates to the rather old report and found literature that adds the developments of the last decade. First of all we have chosen to make themes based on the functions of a green structure that were presented by 'Stadens parker och natur'. The themes we suggest that a greenplanning document manage are: Recreation, Pedagogies and Heath, Biological Diversity, Green structure in the History of Building Cities, Cultural Identity, the Health of the City, Biological Technology in the Municipality and Use and the Users. We found good examples of how to handle these themes in documents that handle greenstructure planning from the Municipalities of Göteborg, Strängnäs, Eskilstuna, Malmö, Lund, Västerås and Uppsala.

At the end of April 1986 reactor number 4 of the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl explod-ed and large amounts of radioactive particles were then released into the atmosphere due to both the explosion as well as the consecutive fire of the graphite core. A cloud of radioac-tivity was spread over the northern hemisphere, including Sweden, due to the prevailing wind directions. The radioactive particles were washed out from the cloud by rain and snowfall in some areas of Sweden and deposited on the ground. The deposited radionu-clides, primarily cesium and iodine isotopes, were later absorbed into the soil and taken up by the roots of the plants. Some of these radionuclides, like 137Cs, still persist in some of the terrestrial ecosystems at relatively high concentrations which lead to contamination of the meat of moose, roe deer and wild boar even today.The two Municipalities Heby and Uppsala, in the eastern part of central Sweden, experi-enced a relatively large deposition of 137Cs which resulted in high levels of 137Cs in moose and other game.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the institutional design of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Sweden and how the design may contribute to realize central democratic goods. The study records the different PB experiences in Sweden and focuses on one particular case, which is the only case that successfully qualifies as a genuine PB-process according to international standards and definitions. To examine this, the following questions are asked: which Municipalities in Sweden have implemented Participatory Budgeting? How can the institutional design of Participatory Budgeting be described and to what extent does it enable the realization of central democratic goods? To what extent does the institutional design enable the realization of the democratic goods inclusion, popular control, considered judgment and transparency? To what extent does the institutional design enable the realization of the institutional goods of efficiency and transferability?The study is based on an institutional theory of democracy. The method used is a mixed method ideal type analysis that combines document analysis, surveys and interviews.

Syftet är att undersöka Läns-SLAKO, samrådsorganet inom vård- och omsorgsområdet mellan kommunerna och landstinget i Östergötland. Målsättningen är att ge kunskap om de bakomliggande orsakerna till uppbyggnaden av Läns-SLAKO, att ge kunskap om hur samrådet fungerar idag samt möjliga förklaringar till varför samverkan fungerar eller inte. Fokus ligger på att undersöka vilken betydelse tillit mellan de ingående parterna har, för att åstadkomma en fungerande samverkan. Syftet är också att undersöka huruvida graden av tillit påverkar legitimiteten för Läns-SLAKO som politiskt organ. Studien har utförts som en fallstudie med Läns-SLAKO som enda undersökningsobjekt. Det är en lämplig metod när syftet är att undersöka en nutida företeelse på djupet och i dess verkliga sammanhang.

Since the 1990?s the Swedish school system has undergone major and recurring structural reforms. Two of the most comprehensive changes has been the shift of primary schools as an integral part of the welfare state to the responsibility of the Municipalities as well as the introduction of free school choice for the students. Through two months of participant observations and semi-structured interviews this thesis seeks to answer the question of how these reforms has come to effect the work of teachers in a medium sized public school in a small municipality in the outskirts of Stockholm. Earlier research has shown that public schools in socio-economically vulnerable areas are disadvantaged due to the reformation of the school system (Beach & Sernhede, 2011; Östh, Andersson, & Malmberg, 2013).

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of Municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

Emissions of insufficiently treated wastewater, mainly blackwater (i.e. wastewater from toilets), contributes to the eutrophication of lakes and seas. At the same time, blackwater is a fraction with a low content of heavy metals and, after sanitization, it can recirculate plant nutrients to arable land using the liquid composting treatment method. Liquid composting means that organic material is degraded under aerobic conditions. For sanitization, the blackwater needs to be treated together with energy-rich complementary material.

A growing need to strengthen ones position on the market, even as a city in competition with other cities, has resulted in an increasing number of Municipalities developing brand platforms. When the city of Umeå developed their platform, they identified decision makers and investors as one of four important target groups.The aim of this study is to explore the portrayed image of the city of Umeå in two Swedish trade journals which addresses the specific target group decition makers and investors in both public and private sector. The aim is also to compare the image of Umeå in the two papers, to the ambition of the municipality, expressed in the brand platform.In order to make the observations as firmly established as possible, the method of the study is a combination of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative text analysis. The study draws on the theories of Eli Avraham and Philip Kotler, concerning how to improve city images and how to market a specific city among others. The study shows that the city of Umeå in large extent is portrayed in accordance to the ambition which the municipality expressed in the brand platform.Umeå is displayed as an expanding city.

In the current situation in the housing market and in particular the inner city much attention is directed towards achieved prices per square meter in sales. The indicator is as a principle an appropriate measure of the housing market?s health and development, and can to some extent be used to make approximations of the general economic health status of Municipalities and counties. It occurs occasionally that questions about whether prices are based on fundamentals at all times.The thesis questions that very issue, not from a macro accompanying financial perspective but rather from a microeconomic perspective, where each tenant ownership in the study is a micro-object. Are the observed prices per square meter rational relative to housing cooperative?s assets or is there a lack in the observed prices anchoring the respective association's finances.

AbstractObjective: To investigate the occurrence of and the risk factors for falls and to  investigate level of fall-related self-efficacy and health-related quality of life in people living in community living, 75 years or older within Uppsala and Västmanlands county. A further aim was to identify predictive risk factors for falls. Design: A cross-section study with a descriptive, comparative and correlative design based on a questionnaire was used. Participants: The participants were recruited from Uppsala and Västmanlands county. A random selection on 525 individuals was done, from a population based sample, in the detailed Municipalities.

The local politicians in Sweden are responsible for a great deal of the welfare system why one would assume that there are a lot of demands put on them - demands for certain skills or a certain level of competence. I have in this study tried to find out how the demands on the local representatives concerning the demands for competence and the actual level of competence among the politicians are affecting the local politics. This was done through investigating how the local politicians are perceiving their level of competence and the demands put on them, but also how the employees are perceiving the demands and the level of competence put on the politicians. The study was made in the municipality of Gislaved in Southern Sweden. I was using both quantitative method (an opinion poll among the politicians and employees in the municipality) and qualitative method (interviews with three politicians and three employees and literature studies).In order to investigate the demands for competence I split the concept into ?soft? competence (socially and emotionally based skills), and ?hard? competence (skills based on knowledge, education and experience).