The problem with narcotics is one of Sweden?s biggest social problems. Statistics shows thatthe number of narcotic related deaths and the numbers of heavy drug users are increasing. Thepresent narcotic policy has been questioned due to this increase. As a social worker you meetdrug users on a daily basis.

This essay studies the concept of "livspusslet", a term in swedish that directly translates as "the jigsaw puzzle of life". In recent public debate it has been used to articulate issues concerning the combination of family life and a professional career. The empirical material consists of newspaper articles from nationwide daily newspapers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet between 2009 and 2011. The concept of "livspusslet" relates to the debate about family values, gender equality and the public view on the issue of combining family life with a career. The widespread use of the concept indicates that the social practices surrounding the debate over family policy is shifting.

During a political election the public?s interest in politics and political journalism increases significantly. During the American presidential election in 2012 a big amount of articles on that topic were published in two of Sweden?s largest newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet and Aftonbladet. Political journalism tends to frame politics as sports, game and scandals rather than focusing on the political issues.

The question of direct citizen participation in politics and administration is a contestable one. Its proponents claim that it has positive consequences even for the more "traditional", representative democracy, since participation leads to an increased political knowledge and increased political interest, and thus creates a revitalised democracy. Critical voices have however been raised to the validity of this claim. Critics have also pointed out direct participation as problematic, because it leads to problems of political inequality: a difference of political influence between ? on the one hand, the citizens participating directly and those that restrict their political participation to voting, and ? on the one the other hand ? between the institutions, for example schools, that employ, and don?t employ this method of direct citizen influence.In this essay, these two points of criticisms are tested in the context of user-boards in elementary and secondary schools.

This Master's thesis aims at pinpointing the political arguments that appear in the recent debate on scientific publication. There is a widely spread opinion that prices on digital resources are far too high, thus taking up a major part of the University libraries budget, while publishing companies make high profits. It is also a common opinion that the current publishing method does not take full advantage of the possibilities of electronic publishing. Lately a number of alternative ways of publishing have been initiated and discussed, generally referred to as open access. Open access published material is available free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions on the public internet.In this thesis the minutes from four hearings held by the UK House of Commons in the spring of 2004 are examined.

During the last years a discussion has emerged around problems with Swedish state boards trying to influence the public opinion and even political bodies through different kind of information efforts. Several observers inside and outside the academy have studied how state boards increasingly use information as an instrument and also how political bodies increasingly have given such instructions to state boards. This essay put those studies into the context of both information political history and previous theoretical interpretations in that field of research.The analytical tool consists of four ideal typical ways ('state opinions') to arrange relations between the state and the citizen. Some critics focus on problems with too much political steering and how political majorities uses state boards to spread ideological propaganda. Others highlight problems with autonomy and bureaucratic organizations taking initiatives by themselves to spread normative information.

Abstract:The aim of this study has been to investigate (theoretically as well as empirically) the problematic notions of state neutrality and political perfectionism and, in particular, the potentially vast continuum existing between these concepts both in theory and in actual political practice. In order to accomplish this, a conceptual analysis has examined (some of) the arguments for and against state neutrality and political perfectionism, different aspects of neutralism and perfectionism as well as the exact definition of the concepts of ?neutrality of justification? and ?conceptions of the good?. Using a specific (though not entirely uncontested) definition of these concepts, an empirical analysis was made of Swedish parliamentary parties and their cultural policies. The empirical part of the study seemed to confirm one of the basic premises of this study; that state neutrality and perfectionism are often (as has indeed been recognized by critics of state neutrality) intertwined in the business of everyday politics..

This thesis examines political consumerism as a political tool for change. Consumers' attitudes and behaviour towards political consumerism is of special interest. The method used is a questionnaire with 59 participating students. Their answers are analysed both quantitatively and, to a lesser degree, qualitatively. The theoretical framework consists of Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action and previously published research of essence.The consumers in this study generally rank corporate social responsibility (CSR) as important.

This essay is about the risks of reporting science through media. We have exemplified the problems with the alarm about acryl amide that came in 2002 through the diffusionist model. From the beginning it was a debate about how dangerous acryl amide is to us humans, but later on it developed to be a debate about whoever did wrong in the intermediation, because later on it came out that acryl amide maybe didn?t cause cancer at all and the scientists didn?t know how to prove if it did or didn?t. In our essay we have based our theories about how the diffiusionist model often is inadequate, with theorists as Stuart Allan, Anders Ekström and Dorothy Nelkin..

During the last few years the countries in the African continent have experienced an enormous increase in female politicians on a national level. Rwanda is even the country with the highest number of female politicians in its parliament in the world. Despite this development in Africa, the quantitative research on women's political representation in the world has not yet paid attention to the situation there. Some of the surveys that have been done have even excluded countries that do not fit the homogeneous pattern ? which is precisely the problem with African countries ? for it to be possible to explain the situation with existing theories.The intention of this paper is therefore to, with all of the 53 African countries included in the study, examine whether the already existing explanatory factors regarding women's political representation also can be applied to an African context to explain the situation there.

The purpose with this master thesis is to analyze how the Swedish County Administrative Board (Länsstyrelsen) acts in an environment that changes fast with more regional actors than ever before. There are also proposals regarding new public authorities and eventually a reduction of the Swedish County Administrative Board.By studying a report issued by the Board in December 2005 the aim is to find their intentions and actions for the future. By using three diverse theoretical concepts - the public organisation, the instrumental perspective and two separate perspectives from new institutionalism - the expectation is that I will have the possibility to analyze the intentions of the organisation in many different ways.In this case study I also want to take into consideration the central discourses in the regional debate, shall we decentralize or shall we keep on having a strong state even in the future? What kind of regional policy does the Swedish County Administrative Board prefer?The result shows that the Swedish County Administrative Board struggles for a strong state even in the future, but it does not propose any huge changes. In many ways it seems like they act as they are supposed to - as an instrument for the government - but despite that it is obvious that the Swedish County Administrative Board tries to show that it has the traditions and knowledge.

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.

People are given better opportunities to participate in polity today. Democratic equality entails that all individuals are equal and therefore they should be included in the process of making the decisions. How can participation be defined and does it mean that having the possibility to participate means that people can influence the process of making the decisions in polity process?This paper focuses on participation and influence in polity and examine the relationship between having the possibility to participate and having the possibility to actually influence polity process on more local level. Therefore I have been examining the citizens? participation and influence in Helsingborg which is my case study.

The function of traditional leaders in the modern states of Africa has been under debate for decades. The dominant research discourse suggests that these institutions should be integrated into the state in order to minimize the amount of parallel political spheres, since the latters are considered to affect state legitimacy negatively. But are the states in a situation where they need to compete with the traditional institutions in order to gain more legitimacy? If so, is the struggle for legitimacy a zero-sum game where there can only be one winner? Or is it possible for these institutions to co-exist or even benefit from each other? The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to research if, and to what extent, African citizens? confidence in traditional institutions has an effect on state legitimacy. This has been done by statistically analyzing the data from the latest completed round of the Afrobarometer survey, a study that has been conducted in 20 different countries across West- and Northeast Africa.

The first of the dual purposes of this work has been to describe the research that has been done regarding the root causes of terrorism and second, using a general causal theory and examining the political dimensions of it, to discuss whether or not general causal theories (grand-theories) are helpful for researchers and policy-makers when reacting to social developments in the form of terrorism. The essay is a qualitative literature analysis and I have based my studies on mostly new books treating root causes of terrorism. I have concentrated on discussing international terrorism and how political dimensions may impact the occurence of this form of political violence. The conclusions I have made is that there is no widespread consensus among researchers and scholars as to what really causes terrorism. Neither can the general model examined in chapter 5 be used to predict when and where terrorism will occur next.