The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if citizens panels is a possible way to involve citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

This essay examines the criteria for a peaceful cemetery. First there is a short history of the Swedish funeral place. After that follows the definitions of a peaceful place according to environmental psychology. From these definitions an analysis method is constructed for identifying a peaceful cemetery. The analysis method contains six criteria, shape of the entrances, existence of sound, vegetation character, the cemetery?s demarcation, the cemetery?s management and what feeling the cemetery mediates.The analysis method is put into practice on three cemeteries, Överklinten cemetery, Stockholm forest cemetery and the old cemetery in Malmö.

The investigation aims to clarify to what extent non-conscious thought has efficacy in e.g. decision making and also examine some aspects of the question whether decisions are caused by free will. This will be conducted through an analysis of new research pertaining to neuroscience, economics, the combination of the two within neuroeconomics; evolutionary theory and especially the new theory of Unconscious thought (Nordgren & Dijksterhuis 2006) which will enjoy special scrutiny due to its recentness in the scientific field. A decision strategy ought to put high-level conscious cognition to use where it's most effective and this is on a different level than the canonized one. Meta decision making is decision making pertaining to which decisions ought to be made consciously.

Warning-labels as a mean of communicating social responsibility in the store. Previous studies have shown conflicting results regarding the effectiveness of warnings-labels as a way of communicating health hazards to customers and making them more conscious about the risks and changing their behavioural intentions. The focus of this study is to shed some light on how the customers react to warning-labels with different levels of fear in the store atmosphere. The results of this study tells us that liking of the retailer and its image as being socially responsible is not enhanced by the usage of a warning-label. If the retailer decides to use a warning-label, in spite of this fact, the recommendation is to use a high level of fear if the purpose is to make the category seem more risky and make the customers want to change their behaviour.

This master thesis was written in the purpose to study how the location and access to computers in the physical realm of the public library reflects the undergoing changes in the public libraries role in Swedish society. This study is done in a form of a case study of three small public libraries. All of them were in the process of transforming both their physical and virtual space. The thesis focuses on where in the library the computers are placed and how their location interacts with the libraries main tasks. It also focuses on the analysis of the relationship between these two elements and how that relationship reflects the alteration of the public libraries place in society.

The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to do a comparativecase study between a public library in Sweden and one in England. Our aim is to examine what factors affect alibrarian in charge of purchasing fiction for adults and to what degree. We have used two methods of study, specifically semi-constructed interviews with two librarians and text analysis of policies in place at each library respectively. Our research questions share the above mentioned context and should therefore be read with that backdrop:-How is selection and purchase covered in the policies?-What selection criteria are used by the respondents?-What differences are there regarding the decision making? -How can the viewpoints be explained?Our analytical framework was based on three arguments namely market demand, quality and social inclusion when examining our material.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to investigate whether Vara municipality has a continuous picture of their identity, profile and image. Globalization has contributed to the increasingly growing of place marketing. Therefore, the study goes on to using the concepts of identity, profile and image to find out if Vara Municipality communicates similar throughout the whole organization and find out their all through core values. Globalisation will be an interpretive framework for the work that describes why the place marketing is becoming more pressing. The sense of place will be a central part of this study as it is the feelings and images of different places that will be described by the municipality together with the identity, profile and image.

AbstractTitle: The old generation and the New World - A qualitative content analysis of media usage of the older generationKeywords:Digital natives, digital immigrants, diffusion of innovation, content analysisThis study has its focus on how the older generation looks at today's media society and the use of today's media. Through a method of qualitative content analysis based on questionnaires, the aim is to examine what the older generation thinks about today's media, how they use them, and whether there are differences in groups according to age and previous work.The study selected theories bases on Marc Prenskys idea of ??digital natives, digital immigrants and Everett M Rogers book on "Diffusion of Innovation". These theories take up the difference on digital natives and digital immigrants and the spread of new technological ideas takes place through communication over different channels in time among causes people in a social system.The result of the study shows that many older people are good at making use of today's media, but also that many may feel alienation of today's media society. Development has proceeded rapidly in recent years and for the older generation it's sometimes hard to keep up.The conclusion of the study is that the older generation may need more help to discover how today's media can facilitate everyday life and enrich it with more communication despite the fact that it takes place through a screen..

The aim of this study is to investigate a number of social worker views on long -term drug abuse and how they feel that this group of individuals should be treated. Our purpose is also to examine these social worker discretion in terms of decision-making under the Socialtjänstlagen (SoL) and Lag om missbrukare i vissa fall (LVM ).We conducted two focus group interviews and assumed a number of open questions. Our empirical data have been categorized by the study's purpose and issues and by recurring themes in our individual stories.Our results shows that all social workers believe that one should always look at the big picture in estimates related to drug users. They also believe that the process of long -term addicts occasionally feels hopeless. Social workers felt that their room for maneuver in terms of decision-making was fairly limited.

This study focuses the development on the protection of landscapes with old industries and how it nowadays is appreciated by the inhabitants. The overall aim of this study is to increase the knowledge about how the so called industrial landscape in Norrköping became a cultural heritage that the citizens want to protect. The study also aims to investigate the citizens´ knowledge about the industrial landscape in Norrköping, and what value they think that the place possesses. Data was collected by an information research and six qualitative interviews. The interviews where analysed by qualitative methods techniques.

This paper is based on a study of the Christian religious school. In Sweden today, surveys have shown that there is a common fear and negative attitude towards Christian religious schools. Despite this fact these schools increase in numbers, which makes it relevant to investigate what reasons the parents base their decision on when making Christian religious schools their school of choice for their children. The formulation of the question in this paper is therefore based on why the parents choose to place their children in a Christian religious school. Previous research on this topic is very scarce and poor, which makes it a relevant topic to investigate more thoroughly.

It is increasingly important for cities to attract visitors, potential new residents and businesses. Jönköping is one of the cities working with place marketing, a strategy that intends to mediate a positive image of the city, in order to accomplish just that.People often have a need to preserve the memory of a trip into something tangible. Anyone visiting Jönköping encounters a souvenir choice, much like the one in many other cities. Linked to the idea of positive place marketing, our work aims to investigate how we as product developers can create a product that en¬hances the image of Jönköping based on the thought that all residents are con¬sig¬nors. Accordingly, we develop three different products from the residents' own image of the city.Our research questions are:Based on the photographs, what image of Jönköping do the ambassadors mediate of their own city?As designers, what in Jönköping's history versus the image of Jönköping today, can we seize in order to give products for visitors a sense of authenticity?As designers, how can we use knowledge of place branding in the development of souvenirs?We performed interviews within three different aspects: history, souvenirs and place branding, all focused on the city of Jönköping.

The intimate connection between autonomy and decision-making in applied health care, especially in various kinds of consent and refusal has taken center stage in medical ethics since the Salgo decision in 1957. Prior to that time, the physician?s supposedly moral duty to provide appropriate medical care typically surpassed the legal obligation to respect patient?s autonomy. The Salgo decision concluded that physicians have a legal duty to provide facts necessary for the patient to make an informed decision. "The doctor knows best" long ago was replaced with "The doctor proposes; the patient disposes." There is no legal obligation for the patient?s choice to be palatable to anyone, other than that patient himself/herself.

The theory of deliberative democracy believes in collective decision-making to achieve an expanded legitimacy and rationality in the political process. It is argued that those good public dialogues best take places in public spheres between citizens, where the common interest is carefully thought about. This thesis was done with the assumption that theatre can strengthen the idea of the public sphere and create a meeting place in the civil society, where a good public dialogue can appear. To create a good public dialogue you need citizens that are corresponding and participatory. Citizens who participate in the political process develop an increased knowledge about the society and the more knowledge about the society the larger reason to participate.

It is more common now to purchase products and services on the Internet. More and more companies choose to sell their services and products this way. Some services and products the customers can get delivered directly to their computers. Therefore, it is important for entrepreneurs to know when they risk a permanent establishment in another country due to their Internet based activity. If the company gets a permanent establishment in the other country, the other country can tax the income which is relatable to the company?s permanent establishment.