The aim of this master?s thesis is to study the discourses on culture as developed by EU Commission. The method applied is a discoursebased historical analysis, where analysis of arguments and metaphors are functional to the enlightening of the construction of discourses within EU cultural policy. EU official documents constitute the empirical material studied. The theoretical framework of the thesis draws upon cultural public sphere theory as well instrumentalist cultural policy research.

This study deals with one particular instance of foreign policy change in Sweden; The political take-off for enhanced Nordic Defence and Security Cooperation in the beginning of the 21st century which led to an agreement on a Nordic declaration on slolidarity. The aim of this study is to explain why the political development has undergone a rapid upturn and when such a policy change occur. Its purpose is to explain what factors and conditions that influenced the policy change. It also explores the meaning of the Nordic Declaration of Solidarity. The theoretical point of departure is Foreign Policy Analysis combined with John Kingdons policy-window theory.

This paper takes it points of departure in a gender equality perspective and the perceived paradox between the governmental labour market policy and family policy. The first policy area has the aim to put people to work, whereas the other introduces a reform, vårdnadsbidraget, that point in the opposite direction. Which are the problem representations within the two policy areas and are the problem representations concordant or contradictive? From a constructivist perspective, langue is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. Drawing on political documents, speeches and articles formulated within the government, this paper analyzes problem representations through the use of discourse analysis and feminist political theory.

The European Union's long-term budget negotiations during the summer of 2005 were obstructed from being successful due to a quite fierceful debate about the future guidelines of the Common Agricultural Policy. A quarrel about money and who gets what, was the common answer as to why it took the European leaders six months to accept the budget, and quite rightfully. This essay, however, goes beneath those explanations and tries to see what other reasons there might be for such a phenomena.With a new institutionalistic approach this study seeks to see what underlying reasons for why an institution such as CAP is so resistant to change. With special attention to the new historical institutionalism and the rational choice institutionalism the study successfully shows that though the front laying reasons to the problems with the budget might have been economical, several other factors also affected the outcome of the budget negotiations.Structures, national identity and decisions taken when outlining the Common Agricultural Policy in the 1960's still affect the European union, its members and foremost of all, the Policy/institution itself..

This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between municipal policy for housing supply and the planning of new housing in Sweden. Through a case study of Göteborg municipality and a comparative content analysis of Göteborgs policy for housing supply and a number of plans featuring housing the analysis seeks to investigate the effect of policy for housing supply as a tool for securing the demand for housing in the Swedish municipalities. The thesis also seeks to discuss its findings using theory concerning the implementation of policy and the general planning situation for Swedish municipalities today. The result of the analysis shows that most plans fail to regulate most of the content suggested in the policy for housing supply, particularly regarding aspects such as pricing, type of housing and type of ownership. The result also points towards a relationship regarding the prevalence of municipal land contracts and compatibility to policy for housing supply as well as a connection between how extensive the plans are in their proposed land use and their compatibility with policy for housing supply. Using theories of policy implementation and the municipal planning situation, possible explanations for the findings of the analysis could be a split in responsibility between the formulating and implementation of the policy for housing supply and its contents, a lack of resources of means for implementing or the prevalence of special interests when attempting to convert policy to plans..

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze equalities/inequalities between the Danish and Swe-dish immigration policy based on Habermas theory about openings/closures and analyze the reasons to the differences between Danish and Swedish immigrant policy. Therefore this study has two question formulations, the first one was "Is there any equalities/inequalities between the Danish and Swedish immigration policy based on Habermas theory of openings and closings?" and the second was "Why are there equalities/inequalities between the Danish and Swedish immigration policy?" The results show that based on Habermas theory there are equalities between the Danish and Swedish immigration policy. On the question why, the re-sults show us that the factors who give the difference are work, people?s attitude to immi-grants and party politics.Keywords: Denmark, Sweden, Immigration policy, opening, closing..

This study is set out to examine if there is any kind of influence between the EU and Swedish gender policy. More specific the Swedish efforts within the gender policy area, especially in the area of social policy and employment, during the Swedish presidency in the Council of Ministers 2001. And also to examine the impact of Europeanization in Swedish gender policy. We have decided to delimit our study to care of elderly and children when it comes to the area of social policy. We are using a descriptive, examining qualitative method.

This master?s thesis analyzes how cultural policy was problematized in three governmental policy areas; culturalpolicy for the free sector, education policy and popular education policy, during the social democrat Ragnar Edenman?s time (1957-67) as minister of ecclesiasticalaffairs. Earlier research has examined the policy for the free sector, concerning artist?s economic problems. This thesisadds an analysis of the other fields of policy, which were reformed in the 1960?s by the same ministry.

The purpose of this study is to examine the changes in law and other types of politicialregulation regarding unauthorized absence during the reformation of the Swedish schoolsystem in 2010. How was this ?new? approach on unauthorized absence established; whatmade it possible and which view on ?unauthorized absence? does it implicate? The study hasa discourse analytic approach in which it examines central policy documents regarding thetopic of inquiry. The study has found that the alliance-government?s education policy onunauthorized absence is pervaded by one hegemonic discourse termed the mono-culturaldisciplinary discourse.

German regional policy has changed from a strategy of redistribution to a regional growth focused policy- strategies, which are often seen as opposites. Both policies, however, still have to relate to the constitutional objective ?to achieve equal living conditions for the country?s citizens.?This paper examines what effects a political change may have had on the interpretation of the German constitutional objective. Its aim is to examine German regional policy and its relationship to justice, using John Rawls? A Theory of Justice.

The aim of this thesis is to map the intellectual base, and identify the general research interests, of Cultural Policy studies. In addition to this the thesis also aims to trace the uses of theoretical and conceptual approaches within the identified research interests. This is done by analysing citations from 130 articles published in the leading scientific journal International Journal of Cultural Policy between the years 2002-2007 using the bibliometric method author cocitation analysis (ACA). The results of the ACA confirm the overall notion that the research field of cultural policy studies is an ambiguous one, even when it?s studied with a quantitative method specialised in uncovering hidden structures within a given field as ACA.

This Master?s thesis has governmental cultural policy in focus and concludes a textual idea analysis of the governmental bill Time for culture. (Tid för kultur.) The aim of the study is to examine how the government is seeking legitimacy concerning the cultural policy. One of the starting points is that the society has changed over time in terms of for example increased globalization and multicultural and even the market adjustment is more evident. Also the economical basis in the society is different nowadays.

The aim of this study is to examine physical education teachers? and students? views on the thesis and its part in the physical teacher education program at The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences.Does the view on the thesis differ between techers/students and the program with its curriculum and other policy documents?What does students/teachers value in a thesis?Does teachers/students have a mutual habitus concerning the thesis in the form of essay writing and how is this expressed?The study is based on a qualitative survey in which the respondents mainly answered open-ended questions with written answers. These answers have been categorized and analyzed with the aims of the study and the previous research in mind. The views on the purpose of the thesis differ, both within the group teachers/students and to a certain degree in relation to policy documents. The value of the thesis differs within the group.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

This thesis concerns the policy process of a proposed bill. The specific bill constitute a new penal law which is supposed to replace the old penal law from 1974.The questions asked considers what in the foregoing policy process that has proceeded, affected and also characterizes the proposed bill. In order to be able to produce a deep and reliable analysis to this question I use two different theories.The first theory being used consists of John W. Kingdons theory of ?multiple streams? which I use to answer the specific question ?what can be recognized to have proceeded and characterize the policy process that the penal law bill involve??.The second theory consists of Peter Santesson-Wilsons development of symbolic policy theories which is given a concrete form in the ?taxonomy of symbolic policy? which he presents.