Ethical evaluation of scientific studies carried out using animals is legally mandated in many countries and has been so in Sweden for over three decades. The animal ethics committees (AECs) responsible for the task have however been subjected to criticism; common critique being that the wrong issues are discussed and that the ethical evaluation is thus incomplete, that there is a lack of coherence across committees and that the committees are not as democratic as they might appear. This study investigates the view of Swedish AEC members on a number of issues in order to shed some light on the mandate and functioning of the committees, and on the grounds for ongoing criticism. In a survey and interviews AEC members and other persons connected to the committees gave their views on the AEC task in relation to their roles, the ethical evaluation per se and whether or not emotions such as empathy play any part in it. There were significant differences found between AEC member categories and several issues were encountered, many of which have been stressed in previous studies.

In modern, Swedish political science there are different ways of looking at ?democracy?. A very common distinction is that between three groups of democratic theories: electoral democracy, participation democracy and deliberative democracy.The nowadays frequently used concept of electoral democracy is often used as synonymous with the older concept of repre­­­­sen­tative or indirect democracy ? frequently regarded as a contrast to the direct democracy of ancient Athens. However, there are also important differences.

The purpose of this Master's thesis is to examine the decision-process concerning public art in Borås municipality. My questions have been from where the initiatives come, who the decision-makers are, how the decisions are taken and which questions are discussed. I have examined this through partly interviews with the members of the deciding organ in Borås municipality, partly through literary studies. I have also analysed texts such as debates and protocols from the Swedish parliament. I have also been present at two of the committees meetings.

For centuries it was a crime to be without work or an income in Sweden. Those breaching this law were called vagrants and could be sentenced to forced labor. They stood outside of society in many ways as they were being criminalized. Society's view of them becomes clear by the laws enacted against vagrancy. The investigations that were made in creating the laws do not only say something about society's view of vagrancy, but something about the society itself.In Sweden we have a unique collection of investigations and referrals that are public records through Freedom of the Press.

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

The aim of this essay was to investigate the effects of adopting a site to the UNESCOs World Heritage List. Thefocus laid on the example of the Decorated Farmhouses of Hälsingland, which was the most recent Swedishadoption. With the question of impact of the World Heritage List in mind, the region of Hälsingland became themain focus. The study was made with particular focus on Gästgivars, a farm located in the municipality ofBollnäs, to which the theory of social life of things was applied. The result of the World Heritage was, in the caseof Gästgivars, an increase of the cultural value and social status.This case study has shown that the impact of the nomination has not been immense, but suggests that longtermeffects can show.

Titel: Fostran som pedagogiskt projekt. Bilden av ?problembarnet? i statens offentliga utredningar. (The bringing up of pupils as an educational project. The image of ?the problem child? in governmental committees).   This study focuses on the image of the problem child as it appears in two texts (from the 1940s and 1970s) of governmental committees on Public Health (SOU) and the new school law (Ds 2009:25, will be implemented in July 2011).

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.

The purpose of this essay is to examine which factors that influence the design of internal control in municipal context and how well it works. We choose seven municipals, where we interviewed the administrative managers, the chairmen of the committees and two persons of the staff in each activity unit. The interviews were performed by telephone, due to the keeping of the essay?s timeframe.The theory in our essay comprises eight hypotheses. These hypotheses were operationalised into different variables aiming to make statistical tests possible.

The values politicians relate with public administration are likely to affect the way that they want the public administration to be organised. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine which values Swedish parliamentary parties relate with public administration and more particularly how they emphasise these values.The study is conducted as an analysis of theoretically relevant bills that the government party and the parliamentary parties have introduced to the Riksdag, and reports and statements of opinion from the parliamentary committees. The documents are from the Riksdag´s sessions from 2000/01 to 2005/06. After examining the documents the conclusion can be drawn that the value that is most emphasised during the period is legal security. This might mean that legal security will have more influence on the decisions taken about the organisation of Swedish public administration..

erspective [80][upps-01.gif] This is a thesis on the Swedish Public Lending Right PLR, from a historical perspective. Some of the questions which are investigated in this thesis are: why did the State decide to introduce a PLR and why did it take about 20 years to make the decision? The question why the PLR was not introduced on a copyright basis is also discussed. The focus of this study is during the period of 1934-1956 and it is a literature-study. Mainly there are four reports made by different committees that have been examined.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine values expressed towards the Swedish literary award Augustpriset in a selection of articles from Swedish newspapers published between the years 2000-2007. The questions posed in the study are: What types of values concerning Augustpriset are expressed in a selection of cultural journalistic articles? How is the relationship between intellectual culture and commercial culture reflected in the articles? How are positive and negative standpoints justified? How can Augustpriset and the journalists be understood as parts of intraconversion on the literary field? The study?s qualitative textual analysis is theoretically based on Pierre Bourdieu?s theory of the literary field. The method used for analysing the articles is idea analysis using dimensions constructed from Bourdieu?s description of two polarities, the intellectual and the commercial, of the literary field.

The main purpose with this essay is to evaluate how the characters of the sexually deviated was discussed during the sexual political debate in the 1960s, and if those apprehensions were reflected in SOU 1976:9 concerning sexual abuse. Furthermore, my prime intention will be to compare the reconstructed historical context, alias the sexual political debate, with the analyzed document, with the purpose to explicate why the anticipated political action weren?t sanctioned and implemented by the parliament. The analysis is carried out through a methodology that retrieves its primal premises from Quentin Skinners theories regarding the history of ideas. My most essential conclusions would be that there in fact existed an equivalence regarding the ideological framework between the radical axioms that was conceived during the sexual political debate and the stipulations that was formulated in the document.

Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

Although being recognized as holding great cultural-historical significance by local officials, numerous parts of the functionalistic development along Friggagatan became demolished in 2008.This bachelor thesis have surveyed how the planning process proceeded through various municipal committees, and moreover, how different interest groups gathered around certain discursive attitudes. As a consequence of various paradigm shifts in society, e.g. that local government gradually are depending on private economic initiatives, there are to some extent a fear among politicians that cultural-historical demands can risk economic growth.Nevertheless, a building or a development are in fact bearing different value-perspectives, such as economic, functional and cultural-historical. Due to the fact that the heritage-sector has limited resources, in combination with sometimes vaguely and obsolete conservation documents, the sector have difficulties of responding common economic arguments, which leads that the real estate-owner gets total interpretative prerogative.However, despite a sometimes suspicious political attitude towards an improved conservation document, e.g. with continuously updates concerning a building?s technical and economic status, there are some political initiatives working towards it..