The presidency of the European Union (EU) is one of the most important institutional actors for the improvement of democracy and equality between the member states. To hold a presidency is a big task and for many countries a tough challenge. What makes a presidency successful? The purpose of the thesis is to examine this question using Ole Elgströms? ?four properties for defining a successful presidency? as the theoretical background. This thesis will employ a comparative framework of four countries, using size and age (age understood as ?time being an EU Member State?) as the defining factors.

The aim of this thesis is to discover facts about the Sweden democrats by looking at statistics of five different municipalities. The main question at issue is: What can you say about the Sweden democrat's voters by researching the voter statistics of the voter districts in the municipalities. The five municipalities who are the object of the study are, Helsingborg, Hässleholm, Landskrona, Svedala and Trelleborg.The Method for this thesis is a case study of five municipalities in Skåne. I have been researching the voterstatistics in the local voterdistricts of 2002 and 2006. I have compared The Sweden democrats with the Social democrats, the conservative party (Moderaterna), and the liberal party (Folkpartiet Liberalerna).The theories that this thesis is based on are voterbehaviour and rightwing-party theories.The Results are that one can not see any signs of the Sweden democrat's success being a result of a far-reaching right wave.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the democratic views in the two latest party platforms, belonging to the two Swedish political parties Vänsterpartiet and Sverigedemokraterna. This by applying Robert A. Dahl's democracy model, Polyarchy, and Carol Pateman's democratic Participatory model, on to the party platforms. By doing so, my hopes were to determine if the two political parties can classify themselves as democratic parties. The result shows that both Vänsterpartiet and Sverigedemokraterna meet the majority of the democratic demands created by Robert A.

In 1988 the Swedish Social Democratic Party decided to reform the tax system. In this essay I analyse the motives behind their acting on a basis of the party strategic theories of Przeworski and Sjöblom. The reform commonly referred to as the tax reform of the century, was although they considered that it was a high risk project pursued together with the Liberal Party. The new tax system implicated a less progressive income tax scale, actions against tax avoidance and raised value-added tax. The empirical analysis is primarily based on memoirs written by the key actors.

AbstractC-level in Political Science by Christoffer Odén, vt-08?Traditionalism versus Modernism. The Ideology Debate in Left-Socialist Party Today?Instructor: Mats LindbergThe purpose with this essay is to describe the ideology debate in Left-Socialist Party between traditionalists and modernists. This essay have the following questions: 1 ) What are the differences between traditional and modern politics in the Left-Socialist Party? 2 ) What is similar between traditional and modern politics in the Left-Socialist Party? My method is to analyse the Left-Socialist Party programme from 2004 and analyse a programme from the modernist organisation Vagval Vanster.

The aim of this study is to describe the characteristics of right-wing populist parties in Europe. The three parties included in the study are the Swedish Democrats (SD), the British National Party (BNP) and the National Front (NF) in France. The study includes a definition of right-wing populism based on previous research and from that an ideal type of a right-wing populist party has been created. The material used in the study to verify how well the parties were consistent to the ideal type and what similarities and differences the parties in the study have are the parties? political programs and policies.

During the later parts of the 20th century there occurred several changes to the Swedish public sector. These changes aimed to effectivize and decentralize the governance model in the public sector. One of these changes was the municipalization of the school system, put forward and proposed by the social democratic government in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This study aims to examine and compare that times different parliamentary parties' opinions on the municipalization of the school system. The source material consists of government bills, and in direct relation to the municipalization of the school system.

The following thesis is examining compliance with EU-law from a member state perspective. The variation in the compliance level between the member states from 1995 to 2005 is analyzed to prove the fact that the Nordic member countries during the measured time period experienced a low number of infringements. The infringements that did occur were resolved faster and more efficient in the Nordic countries then in the other member states. The theory used to explain the Nordic compliance rate is divided between external and internal pressure in a pull and push model. The external pressure is illustrated with argumentative persuasion from the EU-commission to the individual member states; how the state responds to the persuasion in order to act compliant.

The aim of this essay is to show if and how group identities are being constructed in maindocuments from three political parties in the Swedish parliament, focusing on class, genderand ethnic identities. The three parties who?s documents are being analyzed are theModerate Party, the Sweden Democrats and the Left Party. The conclusion of the essay isthat the Moderate Party is so focused on the individual that they are not promoting groupidentity based on class, gender or ethnicity. The Sweden Democrats are mostly discussing,and therefore creating a discourse of, cultural identity, where Swedish, Nordic, Europeanand Western culture are being created as the ?us?, and others are being created as ?them?.They are also promoting difference between men and women, therefore dividing the sexesin groups.

During the last decades the Swedish local party systems have gone through some considerable changes. The number of parties present in local party systems have increased and in some cases even doubled. This makes coalition building between parties complex and parties will be forced to rethink their coalition strategies and adjust to the new circumstances. Theoretically, coalition building has often been considered and applied to national data and there have been just a few attempts to develop and theoretically explain coalitions on a local level. Thus the aim of this paper is to use different theoretical approaches to local data to test the significance of traditional coalition theories.

The Voices of ParliamentCongruence between party and personThe purpose of this study is to determine the congruence between the opinions of members of parliament and their respective party policies, in order to further determine the cause of poor voter-party congruence and whether or not the individualization of the parliament could affect the character of legislation. To do so, the study asks two primary research questions;- "Are the communicated party policies representative of the opinions of the members of parliament?"- "Is the discrepancy between party policies and the opinions of the members of parliament sufficient for the individualization of parliament to substantially affect the parliament's decisions?"The study answers these questions by comparing the average of self-described left-right stances of members of parliament with the average of voter-described left-right stances of party policies, using existing survey data and a constructed left-right dimension. The lower average is then subtracted from the higher average, creating a value of congruence that is then inserted into a constructed congruence dimension. The primary findings of the study suggest that there is substantial congruence between party policies and the opinions of the members of parliament, and that the discrepancy between them is unlikely to substantially affect the parliament's decisions..

 The purpose of this thesis was to explore how the ideological self-image of the biggest Swedish governmental party, Moderaterna, has developed between 1993 and 2011. The second purpose was to compare this development on a fundamental ideological level, with development on the operative ideological level. This was to be made by qualitative analysis of the party?s ideological programs and election manifestos. Hopefully this would expose a pattern of the party?s ideological development. The findings of this thesis however, suggested that while the ideology on the fundamental level had radically changed, the ideology on the operative level has been characterized by continuity.

The Swedish and Icelandic women's movements, the Support Stockings and the Women's Alliance both had the goal to change their nation's women politics. The goal was to increase the low representation of women in their parliaments and to highlight women issues on the political agenda. The essay shows that the most important reason behind the will to form a party, was a new issue being disregarded by existing parties, although there is a considerable interest concerning the issue amongst society. While a party was formed on Iceland the Swedish equivalence did not occur. Even though only one party was formed, both movements achieved the same results.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the politics and activities of the Social Democratic students´ association Spartakus. Their relationships and political and ideological differences towards the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the remaining parts of the Social Democratic youth organisation (SSU) in Linköping during 1969-1971 are examined. To fulfil this aim I have studied relevant literature and interviewed people who were active in Spartakus, as well as people from SSU and SAP in the municipal during the period. I have also studied written material produced by the students´ association itself during the period. The theoretical frame of reference consists of Dahl´s theory on a democratic political order, and party theories like the mass party theory of Duverger, theories from Sjöblom, Panebianco, Lipset and Tingsten and also Gidlund&Möller´s theory about different kinds of party members.

In his recent article Professor of International Affairs Charles Kupchan claims that Party Politics has become increasingly important for American Foreign Policy since the end of the Cold War. This assertion makes it valuable to assess how the substance of the Foreign Policy differs between the two American parties in various cases and if this difference is characterized by consistency or by change. In this thesis I examine these Party positions in relation to the European Security Policy.In order to examine this I compare the positions of the Democratic and Republican Parties? policy concerning both the European Defence Community (EDC) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). The purpose of this thesis is to examine the hypothesis that the Democratic Party to a higher extent than the Republican Party is more concerned to maintain good relations to Europe respectively EU.The results show that there are small indications that my hypothesis concerning the two parties is valid.