Purpose/Aim: The purpose of this essay is to examine the ways two Swedish tabloid newspapers portray and describe the non-Socialist parties during the Swedish election of 2006.Material/Method: We have been studying 388 articles about the non-Socialist parties, derived from the two largest tabloid newspapers in Sweden, Aftonbladet and Expressen, during the month before the election. The method for the study is quantitative content analysis.Main results: The main conclusions drawn from this study are that Aftonbladet had twice as much written material about the non-Socialist parties, despite the fact that the paper is traditionally Socialist, while Expressen had consistently larger headlines. Both tabloids function to a higher degree as political actors than arenas for politics. The results are in accordance with earlier research, which shows that the degree of attention the non-Socialist parties acquired as a whole in the 2006 election, is remarkable. More than half of the articles in both tabloids portrayed the non-Socialist parties as a single political actor.

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain if women are discriminated in the European Parliament, and if so, how it is expressed. Our hypothesis is that female members of the parliament suffer a kind of double discrimination. The European Parliament consists of roughly one third women, but nevertheless the discrimination does not end there. According to our hypothesis women do not have the same opportunity to influence as their male colleagues, hence the double discrimination.The results of this thesis show that women are discriminated, mainly by not gaining access to the European Union's important issues, whilst the female dominated issues are scheduled on late evening and at the end of a session week. Another unsatisfactory issue was that even though half of the reports were given by women, they only received one third of the references to their reports while men received two thirds of the references.

The Stockholm Bypass is an infrastructural project planned to be located west of Stockholm. This study investigates the argumentation concerning the project from different perspectives. The theoretical starting point is within Decision Theory. The main theories include Bounded Rationality, Kingdon's study of the political agenda and theory regarding venue shopping, framing and lobbying. The method chosen for this qualitative case study consists of both gathering data through semi-structured interviews and through documents provided by stakeholders and information available publically through archives and media.

The debate about affirmative action for ethnic minorities in countries with another majority culture is growing bigger in many parts of the world. However, it is often the debate misses the aborigines within the countries? borders. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possible conflict in opinions for xenophobic political parties when managing an aborigine population. I will use a qualitative method to study the ethnic minority Sámi in Sweden, Norway and Finland, and afterwards xenophobic parties view on them.To reach a result will I present a scale over Xenophobia ? Cosmopolitanism, which is described as a political cleavage.

Abstract"The war on terror" has resulted in numerous exceptions from the constitutional order. This thesis is an attempt to give empirical support to Georgio Agambens theory that these exceptions should be regarded as a constant element in modern societies based on a constitutional order. The results of the case study of the empirical exceptions in the American context give Agambens theory validity. The exception is a reappearing phenomenon, which implies that the constitutional order is fragile. What then is it that makes the legal norms fragile? In this thesis I will discuss the causality of moral panic.

33 referendum has taken place in european states regarding the European Union since the fall of the Berlin wall. This thesis aims to initialy identify potential patterns in this group of referenda to launch and test a theory/hypothesis anchored in this pattern.The european states are differing in nature and the standard of living is chosen as the factor that can potentially have affected the outcome of the referenda held. The carrying thought here being that the voters in states with considerably lower standard of living than the european average would have a more positive attitude towards a deepened cooperation among european states.To try this connection between standard of living and how european citizens have placed their votes a main and principal quantitative test is undertaken. It is followed by discussion and arguments about the result of the test.The argumentation goes from being hopefull of the strenght of the hypothesis, to a more ciritical view of its' strength. The thesis is wrapped up in some argumentation about how and why it fails to explain what it was initially intended to do.

This study deals with one particular instance of foreign policy change in Sweden; The political take-off for enhanced Nordic Defence and Security Cooperation in the beginning of the 21st century which led to an agreement on a Nordic declaration on slolidarity. The aim of this study is to explain why the political development has undergone a rapid upturn and when such a policy change occur. Its purpose is to explain what factors and conditions that influenced the policy change. It also explores the meaning of the Nordic Declaration of Solidarity. The theoretical point of departure is Foreign Policy Analysis combined with John Kingdons policy-window theory.

The thesis examines the crisis that the Swedish-flagged merchant marine underwent in the 1990s, that resulted in a narrow market for the Swedish-flagged fleet. In order to save the industry, the TAP- agreement was created, consisting of three parties, government- market and interest organizations.  Purpose in this thesis, is to exam how the TAP-agreement was carried out in relation to the parties, and how it correlates in relation to how the global political economy affected the Swedish maritime politics. Two questions are presented. Is the TAP agreement an expression of Swedish corporatism?  Which aspect of Global Political Economy is characteristic for the TAP agreement? A case study is preformed in three steps. The different parties of the TAP-agreement have been interviewed.  A comparative study of two Swedish crises has been performed, in order to establish the correlation between them, in regards to corporatism.  A survey, with the aim to pinpoint which aspect of Global Political Economy is characteristic of the TAP agreement. Findings in this thesis are that the TAP-agreement was designed through corporatism, and that the most important aspect of all, the Swedish flag was worth saving, for all parties. .

A new theory for predicting the windprofile over a canopy has been evaluated. The theory was first presented by Harman and Finnigan (2007). The theory relies on the forming of a mixing-layer above the canopy, due to different mean wind in and above the canopy. Characteristics from both mixing-layer and Monin Obukhov similarity theory have been used to develop the governingequations that give the wind profile. The theory has been used to calculate wind profiles for sixdifferent atmospheric stabilities.

In this thesis, the introduction of smoke-free restaurants and bars in several EU Member States in a policy convergence perspective is studied. The thesis sets out to explain whether policy convergence has occurred and the possible explanations connected with it. It is stated that 15 out of 25 EU Member States had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars up to April, 2006. Out of all the countries in the world, 35, including the EU Member States, had introduced or decided to introduce smoke-free restaurants and bars. The result is analysed by using policy convergence theory and by putting the case in a global environment where tobacco control has become an ever more central theme for public health policy.The EU Member States are different in several ways considered to be important factors for policy convergence, such as cultural, institutional and socio-economic similarities, and the conclusion is made that EU membership has been a most crucial factor for the rapidity of the policy diffusion.

According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

In this thesis the aim is to explore the connection between International presence and Reconstruction of Postconflict states. The focus in this Analyse is the concept of CIMIC which is the institutional concept of Civil-Military Co-operation in International relations and a concept in Peacebuilding Theory. The cases, which are the empirical Material, is Afghanistan and Kosovo, two most-different cases.The theoretical framework is primarily consider the mechanisms successful for the Reconstruction process in general and within CIMIC in particular. This framework including both theories of State failure and International administered Territories as well as Models for Civil- Military Co-operation.The International presence in Postconflict Societies plays a big role, even thou it is very important that initiatives for rebuilding comes from the state within. The essence of CIMIC is the civil component and the military, operating in Peacebuilding and Reconstruction missions.

In this essay I examine how a municipal- and an independent upper secondary school compare to the ideal types the Company and the Political organization and how that affects the school practise as it?s described in policy documents. The conclusions are that the municipal school on a number of variables correlate to the ideal type the Political organization. At the same time the school reforms of the 1990s are considered as an intention to ?companylize? the municipal school and a number of tendencies how that have affected the municipal school are shown.

This paper seeks to discern the political factors that determine the results of negotiations in international cooperation. On the one hand, it makes a contribution to the broader theoretical debate on international regimes by combining regime theory and theories on globalisation into an integrated framework for the analysis of international policy results, or in this case treaties (theoretical objective). More generally, globalisation theory will help us understand why it has become important to initiate international cooperation, and regime theory to elucidate how these international cooperations emerge. To many observers, it is the large transnational corporations of the rich North, which have done best out of free trade. Through the huge influence they wield over governments at the WTO (World Trade Organisation), these corporations have won the freedom to move around the globe without restriction, making use of cheap labour, and locating wherever they can best tap into the largest and most lucrative markets.

In this essay I try to find out how the local political climate in the Swedish Municipal Örebro looks like through the eyes of Michel Foucault. I?ve been focusing on the concept power, knowledge and politic. I?ve been applying the discourse theory on the study and the founder of that theory is Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau, the discoursetheory is a refinement of Foucaults thoughts about discourse.