Motives and reasons behind a decision to change the asylum process in Sweden are the central concern for this thesis. A symbolic political perspective will be applied in order to elucidate the symbolic factors that have influenced the decision process.The Aliens Appeal Board in Sweden will close down at the end of March 2006 and all pending and future cases will henceforth be decided by three administrative courts. This will be done in order to enhance the principles of legal certainty by making the process more transparent and oral. It is an extensive reform, but since very few amendments are made to the applicable substantive law it raises questions about the actual motives behind the change.One reason that seems to have had a major impact on the decision to close down the Aliens Appeal Board is the fact that the board is perceived as a symbol for an inhuman asylum policy. Transferring the process to the courts might ease the attempt to increase the legitimacy of the asylum process.

The debate surrounding the opinion polls of the political party Sverigedemokraterna, and later their results in the Swedish election has been evident. The purpose of the study is to investigate how norms of equal treatment in social work practice might be influenced by Sverigedemokraterna's understanding of culture, ethnicity, nationality and religion. The thesis is outlined through the works of Teun van Dijk and Ruth Wodak (2000) regarding racist discourse in politics, Giorel Curran (2004) explaining lesser established parties influence on the broader discourses and Anders Hellström and Tom Nilsson (2010) attempting to ideologically position Sverigedemokraterna. With the method for analyzing policy documents designed by Carol Bacchi (2009) the latest motions from Sverigedemokraterna has been analyzed. Bacchi?s theoretical framework, together with theory concerning the expression of modern racism of John Hodge (1999), Paul Gilroy (1999) and Bennedict Anderson (1996) amongst others has been used to create an understanding of the material.

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

For over 40 years, there's been a debate in Sweden of whether it's good or bad with maintenance therapy for heroin addicts. This method is far more acknowledged in other parts of Europe and in USA. The aim of this paper was to explore how public actors manifest their thoughts concerning the subject of the substitution program in Sweden. This approach includes the complex of problems that can be found in statements and the discourses that these operators stand for and support. In my analysis the philosophical thread was principally based on Michael Foucault ideas, but also on other theories related to social constructionism.

Denna uppsats handlar om vad som ledde fram till att IRA valde att lägga ner sina vapen och ingå vapenvila 1994. Vi har hittat flera olika orsaker vilka vi har klassificerat som interna eller externa. Här återfinns orsaker som kalla krigets slut, attitydförändringar, vinster med vapenvila och internationellt samarbete. För att förstå bakgrunden har vi även tittat på vikten av en avväpning i en fredprocess samt hur Sinn Féin och IRA är sammanlänkade. Slutligen har vi även gjort en applicering av våra resultat på en terroristgrupp vilken delar många av IRAs drag, PLO, men även tittat på en grupp vilken inte är så lik, ETA..

The Nord Stream natural gas pipeline has been a controversial project. The debate was primarily escalated by Poland's strong negative reaction to the project in the spring of 2006 over safety and security and then alternated back and forth in Europe until the approval by the nations most concerned in the Baltic region during the autumn of 2009.In the case study an approach is used that primarily maps out the media image of the various viewpoints that deal with the pipeline and how these viewpoints position themselves, primarily through political and environmental dimensions. Simultaneously there?s an attempt to map out the spatial spread of the media image views as to the proximity and distance to the pipeline in Sweden, Poland and Germany. A key question is whether distance or proximity to a large facility can affect people's attitudes.A parallel focus of the study is to explore the role of the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline in the cross-border hinterland region of Szczecin-?winouj?cie.

Abstract Youths and adolescents have for a long period of time, and at a high degree, beenabsent from the party political stage. The causes for this have been discussed inthis essay through a quantitative survey made in an upper secondary school class,consisting of some 19 subjects in the municipality of Kalmar. Tied together withrelevant literature and discourse on the subject, the essay has dealt with thepossible societal-, system- and individual barriers for political interest andinvolvement. Central questions for this essay has been for instance; age, gender,social background, geographical domicile, as well as the decline of ideology, theforms of current party politics, political interest, political engagement and soforth. The concluding remarks contain not only a mix of these barriers existing,not exclusively, for young and adolescents but different ground for them as well.On the one hand, there exist barriers which exclude youth from the conventionalpolitical life, but on the other, the more individualised youth of today, prefer to agreater extent not to participate under the conventional circumstances that partypolitics has to offer.

Den ojämlika representationen i våra folkvalda församlingar är ett demokratiskt problem. För att alla grupper i samhället ska få sina intressen tillgodosedda krävs en representation som speglar samhället, dess intressen och åsikter. Könskvotering kan ses som ett svar på problemet med ojämlik representation. En diskussion av medborgarskap är viktig för att förstå innebörden av representation och dess betydelse.Den här uppsatsen är en forskningsöversikt som klargör hur forskningsläget ställer sig till frågan om ojämlik representation och könskvotering som en lösning. Vi fokuserar på de argument som styr den vetenskapliga debatten.

Due to globalization, decentralization and the capitalist system's need to physical location cities have become increasingly important economic spheres during thee last decades. City mayors are seen as increasingly important actors, who can shape the future economic development of their cities through networking with businesses and strategic policy development. Therefore several European countries have introduced mayor reforms to enable mayors to take a bigger responsibility for the local development. These reforms raise interesting questions concerning what leadership changes they produce at the local level and if there is a difference between local leaders and leadership in different countries. This paper further explores the connection between the local leader and the locality since this relationship often has been neglect in studies concerning mayor reforms.

Earlier research has shown that young and adult citizens in Europe participate in politics in different ways. While adult citizens participate in more traditional ways, non-traditional ways are more frequent among younger citizens. Moreover, issue-based participation increases when Europeans turn away from mainstream politics. Citizens in the European Union EU-15 between 15-24 ages are likely to be ?critical? citizens of a working democracy compared to people in older ages (Sloam, 2016).

During the time of membership in The European Union Swedish domestic policy has gone through many changes. A lot more political areas are being influenced by the EU policy. Today every ministry has got some sort of EU office. Swedish politicians are functioning on two arenas, domestic and European. At the same time Swedish membership has gone from being highly discussed to being a state of normality.

In the present case, the conception of policy hitchhiking gets evaluated in terms of its implications for democracy. This task is executed through the accomplishment of a case study of the use of social- and environmental clauses in the Swedish competitive tendering.A useful definition of policy hitchhiking, including different types of actors, is created.Through the defining of democracy and policy hitchhiking, the author comes to the conclusion that policy hitchhiking in some respects does meet democracy values.The thesis? result can in some sense be regarded as a contribution to the pursuit of knowledge of how power is distributed in the society and how the current distribution can be explained and understood..

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to through a theoretical analyze, investigate the conditions and the challenges for a consolidated democracy in Egypt from 1952 until after the revolution of 2011. The central question in this thesis is what opportunities and challenges are there for the democratic consolidation in Egypt, with respect to civic, political and economic conditions. How have the conditions developed between 1952 and 2011? How has the transition government/military government handled the central problems in the transitions phase after 2011? The theory used in this analysis is Linz and Stepans famous five arenas (the political society, the economic society, the civil society, the bureaucracy and the state of rule, whit focus on the three first). Through a qualitative case study we have analyzed the conditions in Egypt from 1952 to after the revolution 2011.The empirical material shows that the arenas in Egypt are both historically and current very weak, and they are not supporting democratic consolidation as they are challenged by several enormous problems.

The release of Maja Lundgrens Myggor och tigrar in 2007 caused a large debate that mostly focused on whether the book should be seen as a true reproduction of reality or a work of fiction and if the author had made the right choice in writing about friends, family and famous Swedish persons in her book. About one year later Lars Norén published En dramatikers dagbok in which he also shares details about other people´s lives and, by placing the book in the genre of a diary, claims that it represents reality. The critics were easier on him, and more positive over all in their judgment of En dramatikers dagbok, and many were upset about how different the two authors and their books were received. Tofind out why controversial works are apprehended as controversial I have chosen to analyze Maja Lundgrens Myggor och Tigrar and Lars Noréns En dramatikers dagbok, independent of, as well as compared to, each other. While leaning on reception theory andtheories about different ways of reading as well as the autobiography as a genre I have asked myself the following questions:Which factors have led critics as well as the public opinion to speak about Maja Lundgrens Myggor och tigrar and Lars Noréns En dramatikers dagbok as controversial?What do the two books have in common and what separates them?How does the debate differ regarding the two books and what is the cause for that difference in reception?My essay shows that when reading an autobiography or a diary most people cannot separate the book from the author and the life that the book is a reflection of.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate the term equableness in the Swedish elementary school with a take-off point in the free school reform from 1992. This essay starts with the political background of the terms equableness and freedom of choice and the official governmental guidelines. Research from Bo Malmberg and Gabriel Sahlgren act as a framework for the whole essay as their theories are tested. The main problem is presented as the question: is the debated concern regarding a lowered equableness since 1992 justifiable? Both researchers define equableness as a difference in grades but undertake a collective versus a more individual approach.