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 this study is to find out how IOGT-NTO conducted the debate about the Swedish negotiations with EU concerning the accession. The essay investigates how the debate was conducted between the years 1993, 1994 and 1995. A further distinction lies in five requirements IOGT-NTO delivered before the negotiations.The material for this study lies primarily in the editorial pages of IOGT-NTO's magazine Accent. The background content comes primarily from secondary sources and deals with the temperance movement and IOGT-NTO, and dealing with the EU and the Swedish alcohol policy.In July 1991, Sweden submitted its membership application to EU and subsequently in the 1993 the negotiations began. During the same time IOGT-NTO began its debate on a possible EU membership in the Accent magazine.

Denna uppsats är en diskursanalys över så kallade ?pappa-böcker?, böcker skrivna av män om att bli och vara pappa. Syftet är att studera vilket budskap dessa böcker förmedlar och hur männen framställer sitt faderskap. Syftet är även att studera hur budskapet förhåller sig till den sociala kontexten texterna befinner sig inom. Den sociala kontexten är skapad utifrån en litteraturstudie av tidigare forskning.Studiens teoretiska infallsvinklar har varit det socialkonstruktionistiska perspektivet i allmänhet och maskulinitetsteorier i synnerhet.

This essay examines the debate that arose in connection to the sale of Carl Larsson?s monumental painting Midvinterblot in 1987. My main purpose is to examine which meanings the debaters ascribed Midvinterblot and in which way the debate influenced the paintings significance as cultural heritage. I will therefore argue that the debate initiated a renegotitation of the paintings meaning as cultural heritage. In the debate the debaters emphasized the National Museum?s responsibility over cultural heritage, Midvinterblots aestethic, the paintings economic value and its national implications.

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.

The aim of this study has been to explore local cultural policy documents in some municipalities in the geographical region of Västra Götaland. Do the municipalities have these kinds of documents for their local cultural activities, and how are they designed? These are questions which the study has focused on. The study has been concentrated on the library activity in the local cultural policy documents. The research has been a comparative one.

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.

The western societies is characterized by a strong future concern and the members of the society are valued most of all according to their capability to produce. In our time the elder ness is representing a rapidly increasing number of relatively well kept elders. What sight of the future does the aging human have? Are one meditating of what kind of service and care one are going to need? The purpose with this study was to describe how individuals in ages between 60 and 96 sees, both the future and their coming need for care in relation to sex, age, social activities and experienced health. The material was taken from ?SNAC-Blekinge? witch is a part of a bigger national study; SNAC (The Swedish National study on Aging and Care).

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.

The aim of this study is to discuss the implementation of Swedish integration policy from the perspective that public officials, so called front-line bureaucrats, are the real creators of this policy. The concept of integration is far from unambigous; it can have different meanings depending on the theoretical perspective applied. This give topical interest to the question of how the concept is conceived on the national level versus the implementation level. I also aim to uncover how these front-line bureaucrats look upon their role as creators of integration policy. My material consists mainly of interviews with front-line bureauctrats.

This is an essay in Swedish on the subject of democracy and demonstrations of collective violence. The study is based on a conflict between the youth-house movement in Copenhagen and the state of Denmark - the city of Copenhagen. The focus is over the period December 2006 until January 2008 with reflection on the political movement around the youth-house from the 80's and onwards. This political movement roots back to the late 60's and especially the squatting movement, the BZ, of Europe which had a strong period in Denmark both in the 60's and the 80's. There is also a strong connection to other political movements of anti-fascism, anti-globalisation, queer activism and equal rights.

Private state aid enforcement with respect to below market value transactions carried out by Swedish municipalities ? A study on the conformity of Swedish procedural and substantial rules with the principle of effectiveness of EC law Recently in Sweden, several local governmental entities (municipalities) have engaged in commercial transactions that, essentially, have been aimed at transferring the ownership of public services ? for example schools and local medical care centers ? to private undertakings. A few of these transactions have been declared by Swedish administrative courts to constitute illegal below market value transfers of public resources. The essay seeks to determine whether the Swedish national provisions that govern legal claims based on the directly effective Art. 88(3) of the EC Treaty, are compatible with the principle of effectiveness, i.e.

The aim of this paper is to study how multiculturalism is expressed in the Swedish labour market policy. The method used for the investigation is a discourse analysis which study social and political processes in the society as created through language. The perspective of the discourse analysis is a social construction that considers that language is a social production created in a discursive way. It produces and reflects social process in the language.By using theories of national identity and multiculturalism we aim to investigate how multiculturalism is expressed in the labour market policy. With this method we aim to analyze the discourse of a political report made 2008 by the current government about integration strategies in Sweden.

Title: Images of Sweden in ItalyNumber of pages: 5252 (589 including enclosures)Author: Oskar GustafssonTutor: Martin NilssonCourse: Political Science C level ? Bachelor?s ThesisPeriod: Spring term 2010University: School of Social SciencesLinnaeus UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose of my research study is to, through the use of political science theories on soft power and marketing theories about nation branding and in comparison to previous studies on the image of Sweden in Italy, gains a better understanding of the image of Sweden in Italy, with special focus on national political institutions and young Italians.Method: The method of analysis is a combination of qualitative methods: interviews where information about the image of Sweden amongst national political institutions were gathered and a survey where information was gathered about the image of Sweden amongst young Italians.Main results: On the basis of the results I have gained it can be concluded that a positive and well informed image of Sweden emerges when it comes to cultural and social factors but a more restricted and somewhat negative image come to light when asking national political institutions and young citizens in Italy about their views and knowledge on Swedish domestic and international politics and economics.Keywords: Soft power, Public Diplomacy, Nation Branding, Images of Sweden, Italy..

Fire has historically been of great ecological importance in the boreal forests of Sweden. The forest fire regime has, however, varied between different parts of the country. The objective of this thesis is therefore to investigate the fire history in Fulufjället National Park and, on this basis, give suggestions for future fire management. The reconstruction of fire history was done by cross-dating fire scars in samples taken from living and dead Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). Local fire chronologies were established at 17 points in the forests in and around Fulufjället National Park by cross-dating fire scars on 54 samples. The oldest year-ring dated from year 968.