Today equal representation between the genders in parliament is something to be desired. One way to reach the goal of equal representation is by using quotas. The purpose of the study is to research the lack of equality in elected institutions by using a perspective on qoutas.  The study also seeks to find answers to if using quotas is a good method according to gender studies. A text analysis is being used to find reasonable solutions to the study´s presented complivations.  By analyzing different texts about quotas some of the more common arguments in the discussion about using quotas in parliaments were highlighted. Some of the more frequent arguments to implement quotas are that it would be more just but also that women and men may have different interests, experiences and therefore equal representation would be a question of resources.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the institutional effectiveness of the environmental institutions Helcom and the Mediterranean regime, by using Haas, Levy and Keohane's "the three Cs"; governmental concern, contractual environment, political and administrative capacity. The method used is a comparative analysis.This study takes into consideration the specific structural and economic factors that are prevailing in each region where the environmental regime operates. This study also takes into account the influence of the European Union as a factor that affects the environmental progress.By focusing the study on the line of conduct concerning hazardous substances by respectively regime this study shows that the institutional effectiveness is fulfilled in neither Helcom nor the Mediterranean Regime, although Helcom has been more successful. The lack of state capacity is the most restraining factor for both developing countries and countries in the transition towards being developed, to achieve a good environmental status of the sea. This study also shows that the European Union sometimes has a greater impact on the environmental progress in states, rather than the environmental regime in countries that were/are aspiring members, thus showing the ineffectiveness of the regime..

The aim of this thesis is to describe digitization of images in two Swedish museums. We want to examine their reasons to digitalize; the administrative and organizational aspects of their work and how they handle the problems of preservation and access to the digitalized images. These problems will be examined through our main questions: Why do the museums choose to digitize their image collections? How are their work organized in terms of staff and economical matters? What kind of software do they use, and which technical solutions do they choose? Which preservation and access strategies for ensuring long-term preservation and access of the digital images do the museums work with? How do the museums select material for digitization? How do they handle the matter of discarding of materials? The study was conducted both by reading text material and interviewing personnel at the two museums. The museums? main reasons for digitization seem to be to protect fragile materials from deterioration and provide greater access to the collections.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine if the realistic youth novels of today can provide support and inspiration for its readers with the purpose of dealing with own difficulties. I have examined four Swedish novels from 2006 and studied in what way and from whom the young fictive women get advice and support. In the background section of the essay I have made studies of how it is to be a young woman in modern society. It also covers a historical perspective of the modern youth novel and presents studies based upon reading and reader-response theory of young people.

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.

Postmodernism and neo-liberalism is often thought of as two opposite conceptions of the reality and the world. This thesis takes on a critical view of this assertion and the main purpose was to perform a correlation between postmodernism and neo-liberalism. With different theoretical assumptions about constructions of thoughts, agency and structure and the welfare-state a theoretical framework was created. According to this framework the two isms were correlated to each other and the welfare-state to see if there where similarities or dissimilarities between the isms. The assumptions of this thesis are that there are correlations between postmodernism and neo-liberalism in the constructions of thoughts, namely similar view on epistemology.

The French historian Marc Bloch is considered to be one of the masters of medieval history, particularly his creation Feudal Society has been an essential piece of work for everyone who desires a deeper understanding of the general feudal society. Bloch gives his readers a vivid and living picture of a society so far beyond our present that it is sometimes hard to keep in mind that this society is part of our legacy. At the same time Bloch endows his readers with the special historical outlook he and his successors has developed, the history of the mentalities. By reaching further back in time, to the Roman and Germanic cultures and the manorial system, he proves his point that the feudal society was build on the legacy of older structures and institutions.In the coming study I will disentangle the early feudal structure of power as Bloch has described it in his Feudal Society. The essence of this power structure is to find in the very characteristic tie between two men, the vassalage.

For a long period of time there has been an extensive documentation of how things are presumed not to be at our workplace. However there is little knowledge on how it is supposed to be, what makes us feel good and what makes us retain our well-being. The aim of this study was to survey the attitudes towards factors of well-being at the workplace among personnel at four institutions at Kristianstad University. The work method used in this study is quantitative and a questionnaire survey was carried out to produce an overall picture. The majority considered praise from manager and the opportunity of development discussions of great importance.

The aim of this study has been to create a future scenario of what archiving might look like in the future. The main theory used in the study comes from future studies, but also a theory about the social impact of technology on work were used. The questions that were analysed were about the tasks of the archivist, the appearance of the archival institution, collaboration with other LAM institutions, knowledge requirements for the archivist and the amount of archivist positions. The method used in the study was scenario writing, which derives from future studies. The source material consisted among other things of regulations and laws related to archiving together with some archival manuals.The tasks of the future archivist will probably consist of the same tasks as those of present archivists who work with digital archiving, even though archivists probably forever also will have to work a little with paper records.The future archival institution will probably retain its paper records and keep its digital records on digital storage media.

The process of European Integration and creation of the single market revealed many questions and boundaries on the development and improvement of the European Social Policy. Pension?s sustainability has become the priority issue especially during the EU enlargement processes. Different policy instruments and institutions available to governments of Member States in realization of social objectives resulted in a growing diversity of pension polices which produced different combinations of public and private provisions - ?private-public hybrids? , with the state exercising different degrees of influence in their development.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to deepen the understandingof how discourses on reading are manifested in Swedishdaily press 2007-2010. The empirical material is based on76 articles from four national newspapers. The questionsasked are: what categorizations emerge on reading; whatpossible themes can be discerned; which discourses onreading appear in newspapers and how are these defined;and what consequences may the discourses have?The study examines how reading is described and how perceptionsand images of reading emerge and the factors affectingthis, through critical Discourse Analyse according toErnesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe.

This thesis explores how the concept of ?legal corruption? manifests itself within the European Investment Bank with a modern approach to the theoretical understanding of anticorruption efforts. This approach conceptualises the idea of complementing theories based on contextual applicability rather than focusing on their competing qualities. The European Investment Bank (EIB), as the world?s largest multilateral lender, is an underexplored yet vital organ of the European Union, which has recently faced criticism for its alleged lack of transparency and dubious application of policy.

Objective: For a long-term and viable economic development to take place in a country it needs to promote creativity and innovation in enterprises. The study applies the process model to study the process of innovation in innovative companies in Sweden. The study also applies the technology commercialization model to indicate the ability of companies to commercialize the technology to the market.Main purpose: The purpose of this work is to study how companies in Sweden proceed with an idea generation and if they manage to commercialize these ideas.Method: This study used a qualitative approach. Multiple case studies & interviews.Conclusion: The innovative ideas in innovative SME:s in Sweden is emerged from randomly events and from systematic developments. Consumer chock is the trigger who draws focus on the idea.

Regionalisation has become an increasingly important phenomenon in a globalized world. As models of regional integration, the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are two prominent examples. This thesis seeks to explore through a comparative analysis, the different mechanisms and institutions for handling breaches against fundamental values within the two regional organizations. Inter-linked with the issue of the legal-institutional framework is that of what values the mechanisms are designed to protect. The method used for the analysis is first and foremost that of public international and European law, but the thesis also attempts to give a broader picture of the issues presented.

The aim of the present study is to describe and analyse how an inter-cultural perspective presents itself in the didactic considerations and in the practice of preschool teachers on a multiethnic preschool.The theoretical perspective upon which the study is founded is social constructivism, but in addition to this Ingegerd Municio?s idea of two existing discourses present within the institutions in the Swedish educational system, as well as René León?s concept of a diversified normality, has been used as theoretical tools and points of departure.The empirical investigation consists of a qualitative field study at a multi-ethnic preschool, where participating observation and group interviews have been used to collect data. In these teachers from the preschool have participated.The results and the analysis of the data show that an inter-cultural perspective surfaces in the didactic considerations and in the practice of the preschool teachers in their construction of a diversified normality. The diversified normality thus constructed is constituted through different social processes. I have here identified the following ones: the preschool teachers emphasize differences among the children in general, they allow that the children behave differently and they allow them to be different; they recognize ?cultural? differences, differences in origin, and frames of reference, and they recognize that the children at the preschool are bilingual..