The Russian-Georgian war of 2008 drastically changed Europe´s and Sweden´s political climate.Russiashowed that it is capable of successfully completing complex campaigns including ground, naval and air assets. However, not much has been said about the theoretical framework and doctrine of the Russian military of today. Even less has been researched about Russian use of air power and applied air theory. Are air power assets still considered primarily as support of ground offensives or has the theoretical framework changed?John A.

On the 8th of May 2007 a local power-sharing goverment consisting of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was formed in Northern Ireland. The aim of this dissertation is to explore why the DUP, who in the past have opposed all forms of power-sharing decided to form a goverment and take active part in a power-sharing agreement. The study is based on a consociational theoretical framework developed by Arend Lijphart and further developed in a Northern Irish context by John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary. Using this theory the study seeks to understand the broad conditions surrounding the DUP's power-sharing. After a description of consociational theory and the road leading up to the Belfast Agreement,three possible explanations for power-sharing, based onconsociational theory are discussed.

This essay is about the Northern Ireland Conflict and the Belfast Agreement. Its focus is on the development in Northern Ireland politics after the implementationof the Agreement which was ratified in a referendum. The essay is a case studywhich analyzes the progress towards an Assembly Government and powersharingbetween the unionists and the nationalists/republicans. The development is analyzed with Robert D. Putnam's theory of Two-Level Games? The essay first analyzes the changes in the unionist society where the opinion towards the agreement has been negative which depends on the concessions made by the unionist.

? Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use ofthe citizens? proposals??The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens? proposals lead to a broader politicalinfluence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens? proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens? proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory.A selection of citizens? proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased.

The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

Abstract:The purpose of this study is to examine what actually makes Russia an incomplete democracy, despite of all the formal democratic institutions and legal democratic rights.The research method used for this essay has been qualitative case study, which strives to answer two research questions: Which democratic principles are not respected in Russia? How does the executive power control the political arena? The theoretical framework used for this study consists of a model based on Dahls Polyarchy theory and the Rule of Law concept. The conclusions points out that very little have formally changed in Russia regarding democratic rights and the constitution. The democratic decline is due to political manoeuvres and undue political influence. There is no proper division of power and the executive powers are not controlled by a system of checks and balances.

This thesis title starting from zero alludes to storstadssatsningen's democratic work being accomplished among immigrants in Malmö. My thesis examines which types of political participation storstadssatsningen were trying to increase. The goal was to turn the immigrants into political participants, but in many of the projects the democratic work had to focus on building a ground for democratic participation by bringing isolation to an end and teaching the Swedish language. This may have been the reason that there were not extensive forms of resources to put into projects actually raising the political awareness. Some of the projects can however be said to increase a very large number of types of political participation, both temporary and every day participation.

This thesis uses statistical methods to investigate if political appointees working for the Swedish government are good representatives for the members of the ruling party. This is a relevant question since the number of political appointees and the political fields in which they are employed have increased. Some say that this is a sign of presidentialism, which in this context means that the prime minister and his cabinet are becoming more independent from parliament and supporting party. The research is done by comparing the political appointees with an select elite of party members regards to socioeconomic background, which interest that are promoted in society and ideology. The consequences of differences on these characteristics between political appointees and the party elite could be that some interest in society are wrongly overrepresented while others are wrongly underrepresented by the unelected political appointees.

This thesis has the purpose of developing a normative theoretical framework based on different political philosophers and scientists view on deliberative democratic theory, discourse ethics and a modified norm of citizenship. This framework is supposed to contain the ideal communicative situation for people seeking asylum. Hence, the thesis argues that political influence is best practised through communicative rights, and that people seeking asylum are in title to such rights. We conclude that the standards needed to be met in order to reach the ideal are: translators, translated information, arenas for- or channels of communication, language education, and deliberative education. Once the framework is established we focus our interest on the Swedish state.

Which general outlines are preferable in the relation between organizations and government? From normative theory and method I throw light upon this question by defining and comparing two different democratic standpoints. The substantial democratic standpoint focuses on political effectiveness and the procedural democratic standpoint focuses on equal representation. The normative discussion aims at comparing how well the different standpoints function in political praxis. Since the ambition is to discuss concrete praxis I have also chosen to analyse an extensive case of interest influence in Swedish politics empirically.

In this thesis I analyse civilizations in South America. I construct civilizationalnarratives through the method of emplotment, to build a historic continuity, whichI subsequently connect to the theoretical framework. The theory emphasise that,when confronted with globalization and free market capitalism, civilizationsembark on different strategies to challenge the power of transnational marketforces. I find that South America is a polarised continent, and is divergingconcerning the relationship towards the USA and free trade agreements. On thesame time the issues that concern the social movements are not being reproducedin a significant matter at state level.

In today's society social movement are dependent on media as a channel to com-municate their political message and their discourse. Media is an arena for dis-courses but at the same time, along with Attac, one of the actors who struggle to be part of the dominant discourse of the society. This struggle is uneven due to media and the relationship is to some content hegemonic.Attac Sweden was constituted in January 2001 and got an enormous amount of attention in media. But after the riots during the Göteborg European Council in June 2001, that Attac was partly blamed for, the attention in media has faded out. This paper shows that the images of Attac in media hasn?t been favouring the movement, especially during and after the meeting in Gothenburg.

AbstractThis thesis discusses ideological and rhetorical change of the Moderate Party of Sweden. The aim of the thesis has been to study the party during a time-span of almost 20 years, trying to identify changes related to each of the three party leaders.A hypothesis was developed, suggesting that the three party leaders each represented a different kind of ideology namely neo-conservatism, neo-liberalism and social liberalism. By studying newspaper articles and protocols from the Swedish Parliament, riksdagen, I was able to verify the hypothesis in all but the first party leader, Carl Bildt. It was showed that his ideology had more in common with New Right than with neo-liberalism.After identifying these changes I looked for explanations within Party Strategy Theory and Social Change Theory. My conclusions were that the changes could be understood by the great loss of voters in the election of 2002 and that agents within the Moderate Party acted upon the ambition to win new and old voters to the party, thereby recognizing the need for change.Keywords: Ideological Change, Rhetorical Change, The Moderate Party,Neo-Liberalism, Neo-Conservatism, Social Liberalism..

Partly as a reaction to a perceived crisis in contemporary democracy, the nineties witnessed an upsurge in different forms of citizens? fora, dedicated to the promotion of increased participation by the citizen in the political process. Youth councils are a special point in case as they entail the general characteristics of a deliberative forum, with an emphasis on political learning. This study aims to undertake an evaluation of a regional youth council in the region of Skåne in the south of Sweden. Through qualitative analysis, the study aims to portray the origin, purposes and consequences of such a forum.

Uppsatsen granskar systemet för utjämning mellan kommunerna ur political economy- och tillväxtperspektiv. Political economy-analysen undersöker i vilken utsträckning systemets utformning möjliggör politiskt motiverad taktisk omfördelning. Av denna analys framgår att det rådande statsbidrags- och utjämningssystemet ger ett mycket begränsat utrymme för diskretionära bidrag. Den övergripande slutsatsen av political economy-analysen är att det finns en påtaglig kontrast mellan ansatserna i de akademiska studierna och de offentliga utredningarna. Analysen ur tillväxtperspektiv granskar vilka effekter långtgående kommunutjämning kan tänkas ha på arbetskraftsrörligheten, samt vilka konsekvenser detta kan tänkas ha för den långsiktiga ekonomiska tillväxten.