This thesis tackles the subject concerning arguments as a conceptual basis forunderstanding the general strategy of the European Union Commission on issuesconcerning EU-harmonized environmental taxes, politically delicate and intergovernmentaldependent. The Commission's official proposals, communications and other relevant documents are subject to inquiry, where the theoretical bases are that harmonized environmental taxes in the EU is an issue conceived as supported by academic debate, and where the institutional arrangement in relation to an European-national dimension alongside the discursive context, allows meaningfulspace for arguments. The study makes a distinction between substantial (environmental cancerns in itself) and instrumental (other benefits, mostly economic ones) rationality as a foundation in various types of arguments.The study's main findings are that the Commission's official documents over the past 20 years, have been trying to keep a strong image of reason and knowledge based arguments for an EU-wide environmental tax reform. In particular, the types of arguments tend to appeal to the Member States by stressing the instrumental rationality in a European environmental tax reform, indicating the value of good arguments as a part of the Commission's main strategies. In sum, this may have further theoretical suggestions concerning questions of environmental and elimate change policies in a European context or other more general studies relying on theoretical assumptions of logics of argument, legitimacy or studies of motives behind action strategies in politically sensitive issues such as taxation at supranationallevel..

The credit rating industry is a complex and fascinating industry. Its history stretches back more than 150 years and has gradually increased in importance. During its history the dynamics of the industry have changed. The extended-principal-agent model was developed by synthesizing different principal-agent-relationships into one model. This model provides a holistic understanding of the credit rating industry and illustrates the interdependence between the different relationships.

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 purpose of this essay is to investigate why the two Swedish municipalities of Frykerud and Östmark were the only municipalities in Värmland that were forcibly merged by the state during the ?Municipality block reform? of 1971, and whether local identities played a role in the resistance against this reform.     The study is designed as a comparative case study and builds on both history and political science to analyze the topic from a broader perspective. Based on the research situation three theoretical theses have been formulated, the durability of which will be tested in the analysis part of the essay.    The study notes that Frykeruds resistance against the ?Municipality block reform? started when the reform prevented a planned retirement home construction in the municipality. In the analytical part of the essay, the author discusses how the discontent can be interpreted as symptomatic of bourgeois centralization resistance, as well as being due to the fact that traditional, local self-government as a political subject was perceived as threatened.

On 1 January 2007 abolished Sweden as one of the last countries in EU the wealth tax. This wealth tax was in Sweden for almost 100 years. As the great debate in the context of tax reform in 1910 was not so much about the introduction of a wealth tax. The discussion was instead on the wealth tax would be proportional or progressive together with the income tax.When the government with and there finance minister, Carl Swartz, presented its government bill, 1910:88, 11 March 1910, the draft regulation on income and wealth tax was said, that now they had finally made a shift in the direct tax to the state. A change had been sought and it would have been great difficulties to be overcome and it would have been deeply entrenched ideas about this tax reform impossible.Despite all the protests from the wealthy in society, so continue this conservative government through reform with the strong support of many conservative politicians who had most to lose from this tax reform.

The aim of this study was to describe, analyze and compare the Left Party?s, the Social Democratic Party?s, the Liberal People?s Party?s and the Moderate Party?s ideas on immigration policy from 1960-2010. In this study the immigration policy program or party program was analyzed through idea analysis to find out what immigration policy interventions they have come with, and if they want to assimilate or integrate immigrants. Materials used for the study are the immigration policy programs and party programs. Even scientific journals and articles have been used, in both national and international level.

This thesis is based on a case study of the City of Stockholm. The study aims to explore the effects on the city's large investments caused by the public reform. Furthermore, the question concerns the character of the impact and if it will affect what type of investments that will be prioritized. The theoretical background is based on Brunsson's ideas about political organizations shifting towards corporate nature, and Almqvist's interpretation of New Public Management (NPM). Moreover, models explaining public management reform, and the main components of corporate shifting, are used.

The Common Agricultural Policy the European union´s common agreement about the agriculture financial support. A major change is about to take place in the next 3 years. This reform affects the first 15 members as well as the 10 new members in CAP2. This study contains a future of how agriculture will look like in Sweden in 10 years. The study is mainly based on interviews with key-persons3 in Sweden. The first part describes the CAP-reform in theory, the second part the interviews and the last is a conclusion of the material. The future will see larger farm units.

Essay in Political Science, C-level, by Camila Alvarez Cea, spring semester 2010. Tutor: Alf Sundin?Reality or a Political Mirage? ? A Study of the Swedish Press Views on the Health Insurance Reform in the USA? The purpose of this essay is partly to examine whether the picture that Swedish press presents of the health insurance reform in the US, which is part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Act bill, will be of crucial importance to the possibilities that the American population has to receive health insurance. The main research question is accordingly: ?Does the picture that Swedish press presents of the health insurance reform in the USA, seem like something that will be of radical importance to the possibilities of the population to receive healthcare?? The purpose is also to examine in which model (demand or market) the opinions of the Swedish press fits. This purpose will be answered by using three specific questions asking whether their opinions differ when it comes to three criterions: organization, financing/resources and delivery systems.

This master thesis is an analysis of how the amount of health centers per inhabitant has changed since the Swedish government implemented a new health care reform in 2010. The reform implies a free choice of health centers in the Swedish regions and opens up the market for private firms. The purpose of the thesis is to study the effects of the different financing systems toward the health centers in the regions. The models are based on theories of the need of health care. Two of the independent variables which are studied are income and age.

This thesis is an evaluative study of the political reform, Friskolereformen, which enabled independent schools to receive state funding. The study evaluates to what extent the incentives, which preceded the reform, have been fulfilled. The evaluation is defined to include upper secondary schools in the municipality of Halmstad during the years of 2005?2010. The reform was enacted on the basis that it would result in a higher standard of quality, efficiency and freedom of choice.

The aim of this paper is to study intra household allocation of capital income by using data on Swedish observations. The 1991 tax reform was to change the taxation on capital income from a progressive to a flat tax system. Before the tax reform there were incentives to allocate capital income to the spouses with the lowest income of labor in order to reduce the total tax burden. The data describes the year of 1989 and 1993, those we choose to examine. Using Swedish data from LINDA database we estimate a quotient by ordinary least squares (OLS) regression.

Swedish public administration has for the last few decades undergone reforms aimed at making it more efficient. A substantial part of these reforms have concerned creating clearer roles for politicians versus officials in the public sector, i.e. giving politicians a responsibility for setting goals and steering activities and public officials the role of implementing them.This study aims to examine one reform following this path that is under implementation in a Swedish public authority; Försäkringskassan, the Social Insurance Agency. The purpose of the reform is to increase the organization?s effectiveness and the rule of law.

This thesis uses the ?What's the problem?-approach developed by Carol LeeBacchi. This approach studies how the problem that a certain policy is supposedto take care of is represented. Each representation will rest upon certainassumptions and will accordingly support certain solutions while other solutionswill be considered less suitable to the problem as it is represented.The thesis therefore evaluates the competing problem representations forgender mainstreaming in Sweden. The theory chapter explores two developmentpossibilities for gender mainstreaming, based on diversity and deliberativedemocracy.

After the last election Sweden has got a government that claims to be feminist. This thesis discusses whether the change of labels has also brought along policy formulated in a feminist way, arguing that the way policy is expressed affects how people see a certain problem. Three policy proposals are analysed, and in only one case the government seems to have been influenced by feminist ideas. The other proposals partly support claims made by new institutionalism that norms and routines in an organisation work to resist policy change, but also shows that feminist ideas are resisted more actively. The fact that so called policy entrepreneurs was present in the policy process at a certain period in time, probably counts for one explanation to the exceptional policy.