The concept of the work-first principle (arbetslinjen) might be considered old, but still serves as the main principle as well as an instrument in the Swedish labour market and social policy today. The original idea was that work and willingness to work was to be rewarded, especially due to a common opposition against the passive receipt of grants. The general definition of work, today, is that it is something desirable that should be achieved and that unemployed primarily will be offered training or work rather than grants and subsidies. When the Moderate party re-launched themselves as Sweden's "workers' party of today", in the beginning of the 2000's, the concept was brought back into the spotlight. In the elections of 2006 and 2010, the labour market was widely debated and become a controversial issue, with the concept of the work-first principle playing a major role.The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and problematize how the concept was presented and explained in the nationwide newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet during the 2010 elections, this in order to increase the understanding of the concept?s contemporary definition and policy implications.

On December 1th 2009 the Lisbon Treaty entered into force, and through Article 13, the recognition of animals as sentient being was given a more visible part in the very core of EU law. This was an effect of a political decision to commit to the issue, partly because of the will to further harmonize the EU market, but also due to increased societal concern for the wellbeing of animals. Over the last decades, ethical awareness is growing in many countries, one reason being new scientific discovery. This influences legislators and policy makers to take proper action, and in this way, ethics and science often work together as the very basis for the development of new legislation and policies. There is yet to be seen what the actual consequences of Article 13 will be, since the legal obligation remains the same and there are still some reservations in it.

EU is an organization that has expanded really fast during the last years. When you read about different EU membership processes you notice that some processes have been much faster than others. Spontaneously you think that this depends om that some countries have not been fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria. However, during the last decennium some scientists have written articles about motives that have affected the membership processes. The basic problem in my essay is how we are supposed to understand a membership process? Since I was interested in if I could see the same inconsistent behavior pattern in other membership processes I chose to study Turkey and Croatia.

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.

This thesis will address a problem concerning availability of information systems at an enterprise within the financial sector and its external suppliers, so called trusted third party. The information system resides on the internal network of the enterprise and must be available to both employees of the enterprise and the trusted third party simultaneously. This contradicts the company policy which disallows third parties access to the internal network. The HAVECA-model introduced in this thesis provides a framework of methods, each solving a sub problem identified in the model. The identified methods are hardening, verification, control and assurance, together supplying a method for continuously securing the internal network against a trusted third party.

The Arctic region has not been a topic of discussion or a reason for a conflict in the past, but with the development of environmental issues which has resulted in melting of the ice, so has the interest for the region developed. This has resulted in a conflict over the area, with five countries as main actors. This paper investigates the five main actors? goals with increased influence in the area, using the thoughts of Rational Actor Model, with states as utility-maximizing actors and foreign policy as the expression of national interest. Furthermore the paper investigates the means of getting to the goal, what kind of tools they use.The paper shows that all of the countries are interested in the economically benefits that are buried under the melting ice and the short cuts in sea routes that will be a possibility to use ones the ice melt more.

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 ambition of this study is to examine the discussion surrounding the Swedish participation in the European security- and defence policy. By forming feasible areas of arguments the goal is to gain further comprehension in the case of Sweden. These arguments are formed in close relation to the empirical sources; With less public funding there are economic aspects of cooperation, this could also be related to Swedish the industry of defence systems; A high level of participation in the UN is a tradition in Swedish foreign policy, the European battle groups are the perfect tool to further strengthen the UN ability in conflict management and peace keeping missions; Outside the EMU Sweden could face the political margin, to retain influence a high level of activity ought to occur in the integration process; Finally, the future position of United States and NATO is not clear, Europe needs an capacity apart the US to contribute to lasting peace and stability. The arguments are close related to each other, but the main argument is to through ESDP create a tool that will strengthen UN, there is also a wide range of economic arguments related to the industry..

Computers together with Internet have been growing enormously, during the last decade and the area of information technology has been growing in the same speed. As long as the surrounding environment evolves, the business models must within the IT-area, keep the same pace. So, how do business corporations handle this change to attract customers? How do the dominant business models look like? In many cases, they are apparently much the same. But what differences can we see and what areas can be improved? We have showed that the IT area isn?t just one, it consist of several segments.

Background: Risk Management plays an important part of the enterprises strategic business activity. Efficient Risk Management will secure the businesses survival, assets and creates market advantages. The interest of information security has consequently gained in Swedish corporations. Corporations have realized the importance of the information which is stored in the IT systems. IT is the tool for businesses future progress and growth and therefore a source of risks.

The social dimension in the EU, explored through the document texts of the Treaty of Rome, the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Policy Agenda and the Swedish Strategy ReportThis paper explores the social dimension of EU social policy, except the aspects of the economic and labour market. The EU documents reveal an underlying line of thought stemming from the alignment of the six founding countries, spearheaded by France, with the conservative corporatist welfare model. As one of four European welfare models, the conservative corporatist model emphasises labour market issues, corporate social responsibility and the subsidiarity principle in EU social policy. It also influences how the texts define the terms social, social policy and social exclusion. The definitions determine how policymakers combat problems such as social exclusion and identify the policy issues to be included in EU social policy.The Swedish Strategy shows how the country is responding to the objectives that it has been assigned by the EU and how it plans to attain them.

The flexibility of the labour market is considered as an instrument for increasing economic growth.Therefore has the use of flexible employment, also called atypical employment, increased. The atypical employment is characterized by insecurity in comparison with a traditional permanent full- time employment. One of the most common atypical employments is the manning employment, which is insecure whether it is permanent or not. The insecurity in the industry is based on insecure income, unpredictable working hours and poor psychosocial work environment.In order to encourage a continued increase of flexibility in the labour market while the need for security for staffing employees would be satisfied was Directive 2008:104 adopted. A certain amount of security has been achieved.