The ambition of this essay is to examine if groups on Facebook are examples of ?slacktivism? and discuss which qualifications these groups have in order to provide a democratic conversation. The results will be discussed relative to democratic participant, information overload, interactivity and previous research. By nethnographically observing three groups and analyzing selected posts and comments with the critical discourse analysis one can see that slacktivism spreads easily by people liking and sharing posts from the groups to their friends. The particular groups that has been analyzed in this essay are committed to save Swedish traditions that they believe is threatened.

According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

The Swedish Social Democratic Party was for a long time skeptical of Sweden?s opportunitiesto apply for membership in the European Community. Sweden?s longstanding policy ofneutrality was until the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe 1989 seen as an obstacle tomembership. These changes were an important factor to why the social democratic partychanged their position on the EC and in October 1990 applied for membership.

The study shows how seven informants, all studying at a university in northern Sweden to become art teachers, perceive and relate to controversial contemporary art in the context of secondary school art education. The study is based on semi-structured interviews. The study contributes to a nuanced view of these informants opinions and thoughts regarding provocative contemporary art, in relation to the school's democratic values ??and founding mission. The seven informants' responses were compiled thematically linked to the study's purpose and issues to allow for comparisons and analysis.

By studying a place or a phenomena research contributes to the creation of the image of the thing that he or she studies. Also, planning is seen as a democratic tool, a way to ?make? democracy. In order to see what democratic ideals that is being express it becomes important to study the research about democracy in Botkyrka. It is from this thinking this study about democracy and research has been formed.

Partly as a reaction to a perceived crisis in contemporary democracy, the nineties witnessed an upsurge in different forms of citizens? fora, dedicated to the promotion of increased participation by the citizen in the political process. Youth councils are a special point in case as they entail the general characteristics of a deliberative forum, with an emphasis on political learning. This study aims to undertake an evaluation of a regional youth council in the region of Skåne in the south of Sweden. Through qualitative analysis, the study aims to portray the origin, purposes and consequences of such a forum.

This thesis examines the impact that the Euoropean Agricultural Policy has had on the tobacco regime during the years from the start of the Common Market Organization for Tobacco in 1970 til the days of today. The Truman method has been employed to estimate the degree of change of trade creation or trade diversion on the domestic market and also on the worldmarket. From these facts an analysis has been made to investigate how and if a new reform of the CMOT will affect the European tobacco market. Through the CMOT, the European Commission has tried to rise the quality level and the prices of raw tobacco growing in Europe. The european market value for tobacco has been rising and a marginal grade of of trade creation within the union and a grade of trade diversion to third countries has been shown since the implementation of the tobacco regime.

The purpose of this essay is to present, from a theoretical framwork about regional democracy, possible methods to handle the regional democratic problems in Östergötland in Sweden and to investigate the opinion of the political parties regarding this issue. Both the national and the local/regional level are investigated. The contents of the essay is based on literature studies and interviews of politicians in Östergötland. Regional democratic problems that is discussed are the political responsibility and the power distribution between the political actors on the regional level. A solution of the problem could be to organize the regional society structure in accordance with one of the following organization models"Statligt regionalt ansvar","Kommuner i samverkan"or"Regionalt folkstyre".

Democracy is a term that has been researched, and still is researched, a lot. In my education to become a teacher it has been the subject that interests me the most and I would like to be able to contribute to this research. The starting point of this essay is that in my experience there is a difference in how the national curriculum describes democracy and how the students I have met describes it. Therefore I wanted to investigate whether this also applies to a wider context than the students that I meet in my everyday life. The purpose of this essay is; to examine whether students in the ninth grade has the same view on democracy as the national means of control. The result I have attained through my work is that they somewhat share the same vision.

The UN was established after the Second World War. The organization?s primary goal was to maintain peace among all nations. When the UN intervenes in other states affairs, it is violat-ing the principles it is set to defend, principles of non-intervention and respect for sover-eignty. The outcome from such interventions is very important, a result that can legitimize the action.

Who runs the development? A comparative study of the construction of residential buildings in Nacka and Södertälje.The aim of this study is to identify actors involved in the initiation and implementation of residential house construction in two Swedish municipalities. This means who is taking initiative for new residential buildings, who affects the planning process, who finances these new buildings and who builds them. By exploring empiric material from the municipalities of Nacka and Södertälje, the above questions will be answered and by referring to pluralism, growth machine theory and regime theory a link to general theories of political science is made. The results found show that the analysed municipalities have quite different possibilities for acting and that these backgrounds are also important for which actors will take initiative for new residential buildings and which actors will be allowed to state their opinion during the planning process.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the attitude of teachers regarding including democratic behaviour when grading students in social science. The purpose is also to investigate whether the teachers consider there to be a conflict between the right of freedom of speech and the democratic values that the school is supposed to make sure the students have when they graduate. The study also investigates the problems political decisions encounters when going from theory to reality.The theory of Ulf Petäjä on why the freedom of speechs is important, Robert Dahls theory about the democratic process and Anders Sannerstedts theory about converting political decisions to reality is what this study is based on.The study was carried out at three different schools; Teleborg Centrum, Växjö, Dackeskolan, Tingsryd and Centralskolan, Virserum ranging from the spring of 2006 and the spring of 2007. The method used except from litterature studies was interviews with active teachers.This study shows that teachers don?t think it?s acceptable to grade students based on their political ideology.

The aim of this paper is to describe which view the Chinese government in connection with the Olympics wants to display for the natural world and analyze if this view coincide with China?s foreign-policy goals. A qualitative content analysis is used. By using the theory of rational choice and a model with three different political approaches I want to examine whether or not the foreign-policy goals of the Chinese regime comport with the view that displays in two major newspapers in China. Since the runoff voting in Moscow in 2001 for the 2008 Olympics the Chinese government has been able to act rational and to compose different strategies to use the Games in Beijing for political propaganda.

This thesis examines the power of developing countries within the World Trade Organization (WTO). The research question is if there is a change in the power relations between developing countries and developed countries from the establishment of the WTO in 1995 and until mid 2006, and if so, why this change is taking place? The thesis has its theoretical starting-point within regime theory and views it from a critical theoretical perspective. A multidimensional why of dealing with the concept of power is being used to answer if there is a change in the power relations? The conclusion is that there is a small change in the power relations and that the developing countries are gaining more, but limited power.

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to illustrate Serbia?s democratic development on the basis of consolidate democratic perspective. Linz & Stepan´s five arenas (political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic) are required for the possibility to become a consolidate democracy. In order to fulfil the aim, I have chosen to focus on the political and civil arenas that are most central in the study of consolidate democracy.The purpose of this study is to process how far Serbia has come towards a consolidate democracy and which obstacles still remain in the transition.The questions in this study are:? What problems has Serbia faced since the democratic transition in the beginning of 1990?? What possibilities are there for Serbia to consolidate the democracy, with focus on the two key arenas of consolidation?By applying the theoretical framework to the data, I have been able to present answers and build up an analysis.