The drug treatment staff attitude towards needle exchange is what investigates in this study. The aim of this study is to see what?s affecting the standpoints in the needle exchange issue and also to investigate if the needle exchange is compatible with Swedish drug policy. The study has a qualitative approach and it?s based on eight semi-structured interviews with drug treatment staff.

Social networks have increased significantly during the latest decades, but what does the cooperation include and how does the network processes look like? Networks are not specific for communities in the 2000?s or for that matter human organisations, but the ability to build networks and introduce more actors to the organisation have become easier with today?s communication technology. The study is about the Norrköping Municipality membership in the transnational network Sweden Emilia Romagna Network (SERN). It gives an insight into how networking and cooperation can be seen by politicians and officials, based on mission statements and the reason why a municipality choose to participate in transnational networks. The study aims to examine how Norrköping Municipality uses the SERN network and what the network have resulted in since the beginning of the municipality membership in 2005. It is a qualitative study which involves interviews with officials and politicians from the Municipality of Norrköping and textual material from SERN?s strategy documents and policies.

In Sweden there is an integration policy and a policy for national minorities. The integration policy aims to integrate newly arrived immigrants (nyanlända invandrare), whereas the minority policy aims to maintain and strengthen the rights of the national minorities. The national minorities are though, at times, included into the integration policy, even though they hold a minority status in Sweden. This paper aims to, through discourse analysis, investigate the research question: ?how is the content of integration referred to, when it is related to immigrants, contra when it is related to national minorities?.

The purpose of this paper was to discuss stigma and stigmatisation in relation to social policy and social work. By discussing welfare systems in social policy I wanted to see if there could be any connection between social policy and stigma. I used case studies of hearing impaired adults to give examples of how the stigma processes work. By connecting the stigma and the social policy theories with the case studies I wanted to see how the social policy could affect the stigma processes or vice versa.In the paper the concept of stigma has been described and discussed, foremost using the theories of Erving Goffman. I have also discussed the welfare system and the connection between residual systems and stigma.

The common asylum and migration policy of the European Union is a struggle between a strong belief in the protection of human rights and the need of strong and secured borders. This paper highlights the dilemma that occurs in the common asylum and migration policy of the European Union. What happens when the union have to choose between liberal standards with high priorities to human rights and a realistic focus on security? The aim is to study the asylum policy presented in the Stockholm Program, and thereafter evaluate what kind of character the union has itself. By an ideal type analysis of the Stockholm program from 2009, the common asylum policy is divided into either liberal or realistic ideas.

Different reports imply that the Roma are an excluded group in numerous areas of both Sweden and Europe. Efforts have been done through the centuries without given intentional results. The past 12 years as a Swedish national minority have not diminished the gap between the Roma and the majority society. How does Sweden create and operate its minority policy especially towards the Roma? We have studied international and national minority policy to see how it is described and implemented in the municipality work.

In a global context the traditional democratic process is facing new challenges. Scholars are talking about a transition from government to governance, where local and regional networks as well as international collaboration are an important part in how regional policy is produced and implemented. In this paper the processes in regional projects funded by the European Union are considered, and related to the traditional democratic process. The study has been fulfilled through informant interviews with representatives from four EU-projects. The interviews are supplemented by a qualitative text analysis of current statutes.

The current debate regarding organizational strategies for sustainabledevelopment is influenced by the theory of global governance. Decentralizedstructures of the global society are taken to use in the realization of a sustainabledevelopment. New roles of transnational networks and partnerships raisesquestions of the ability of global governance to co-ordinate and implement longtermsolutions without assistance from centralized and hierarchic structures basedon government. The aim for this thesis is to illustrate the current conditions forwell-functioning networks of sustainable development and examine therelationship between global governance and government. Issues of participation,decision making and compliance are examined by a case study of the Marrakechprocess, a global process to support the implementation of sustainableconsumption and production.

In today's society the borders between work and leisure blurs out more and more, and just as we might bring our work home, we might as well take our leisure to work with the help of so called smartphones with constant connection to social networks such as facebook and twitter. But what happens when the small talk around the coffee machine in the workplace gets out in public spaces? Instead of complaining to my closest colleague when my boss is acting like a fool or when my workload sky rocketed, I might now instead update my status on facebook with my complaint. But what am I actually allowed to write about my employer? And has the employer any possibility to act legally in respond to what I write?For the younger generation, who more or less is grown up with these social networks, I think this demarcation can be difficult to draw and understand.In this essay I deal with the issue of whether a principle of law, such as the duty of loyalty might collide with my constitutional right to use freedom of speech against my employer..

The aim of this paper is to research and discuss the role the cultural politics play for the Swedish employment office (Arbetsförmedlingen) and the meaning culture politics have within the labour market policy. A research has shown that Arbetsförmedlingen evaluates unemployed cultural workers differently than regular registered jobseekers. From an instrumental perspective on political implementation this can be considered as an anomali. Arbetsförmedlingen?s mandate derives from the government and its authority is a tool for carrying out state policy.

This thesis is a case study that examines what political decisions have been taken and how these policies have been implemented. Further this thesis discusses how legitimacy of local policy makers and implementors is affected. The subject studied have been the social service of Jönköping municipality and the intervention of safe-housing aimed at women who have been, or are subject to violence by person close to them. In our study we have examined local policy within the territory of the intervention and how this policy is implemented. A qualitative method with semi-structured interviews was used in combination with quantitative methods to examine protocols from the social welfare board and an action program named "Skydd och stöd för misshandlade kvinnor och deras barn? [Protection and support for abused women and their children].The purpose of this study has been to highlight how the social services implemented the local policy of safe-house accommodation in Jönköping municipality from the legitimacy and discretion perspectives.

The aim of this qualitative study was to examine bereaved individuals? experiences of support from their social networks and participation in support groups. The theoretical framework is based on theories about social support and parts of the attachment theory. Data were collected from four interviews and analysed by the study?s theoretical framework.

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 Swedish alcohol policy has by tradition a restrictive composition, with high taxes and the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly as important elements. The Moderate Party has been powerful critics of the alcohol policy and has advocated a reformation. However, today the Moderate Party seems to have changed the attitude towards the alcohol policy and it even supports the Swedish initiative to create cooperation about alcohol matters at the EU level.This thesis examines why the Moderate Party has changed its attitude towards the restrictive alcohol policy. Three aspects have been considered: the rise of a European public policy, strategic choice, and the influence of the political environment. The paper discusses the problem from a strategic perspective, which means that the political change is viewed as a result of strategic considerations.The party has indeed been affected by all of the three aspects, although to different extent.

The Motor Group of the European Council was commissioned in the autumn of 1997 to prepare a proposal for a new European Bus and Coach Directive. In the beginning, most of the Member States did not have the accessibility requirements as their main concern; still a smaller network with actors from the National delegations from Britain, Germany and Sweden would influence the other National delegations in the Council group to finally agree to retain the requirement of accessibility of the Directive. Within the EU decision process, the European Disability movement acted as a strong player during the whole negotiation process using the proposal to a new Bus and Coach Directive as a tool to influence key actors to go towards a Directive with a strong approach for accessibility.Policy Transfer and Policy Transfer Network are used as analytical tools to understand and structure the transfer of the question of accessibility during the negotiation process. Actors understanding how the bureaucratic process works within the EU decision system have a chance to contributing for the changes in the directions they wishes for within a range of policy areas. The principal aim of the Directive was to guarantee the safety of passengers and to provide technical prescription in particular to wheelchair users.