This thesis is dedicated to analysing the relationship between Islam and democracy and the role played by Civil Society in a process towards democracy. This theme is further elaborated through a comprehensive study of three modern Muslim intellectuals: Abdolkarim Soroush (Iran), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland), and their thoughts about and views on Islam and democracy. Islam has often been portrayed in a stereotype manner where all forms of change are seen as impossible. The aim of this study is to go beyond this vision and instead focus one the role of Islam in processes of development and new forms of interpretation concerning democracy.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the relationship between Islam and democracy.

The purpose of this Master thesis is to increase the knowledge about how public libraries can contribute to fulfil political programmes aimed towards integration. To achieve this we have conducted an evaluative case study about a public library in Sweden and the activities they carried out within the framework of the metropolitan policy programme Storstadssatsningen?. The questions raised consider which the political aims for integration within this programme were, which activities the library did accomplish, what the result in comparison with the politically decided aims was, and what conclusions can possibly be drawn from this? The theoretical framework consists of theories regarding evaluation, political programmes, integration and segregation, and public library-activities.

The purpose with this essay is to investigate Swedish political parties who have had or has a restrictive immigration policy containing opinions, that can be classified as xenophobic, and their history and development as a party. The focus in this essay is centred on the politicization that the parties Ny demokrati and Sverigedemokraterna have gone through and the mobilization they have reached. The material that will be handled in this matter are mainly the parties? political programs that have been published in various forms, but these will be supplemented with secondary sources in the form of previous research, reviews by journalists and other literature. The result have shown that the development from 1970 ? 1980´s to today considering these type of organizations is that they have changed in their appearance, in the matter of how they convey their message, and the actual appearance of the party members more than the message itself.

Ändamålet med denna uppsats är att ta reda på vilka värden som svensk säkerhetspolitik grundar sig på samt att se om det existerar en konflikt mellan försvarsberedningen och Försvarsmakten. Detta allt utifrån en idéanalys av försvarsberedningen och Försvarsmaktens offentliga tryck. Bakgrunden till detta är den diskussion som uppstått i medierna kring Försvarsmakten. I medierna har vi kunnat ta del av information som berättar om ett försvar som döms ut i interna rapporter och där det talas om en identitetskris. Men också om hur Försvarsmakten idag är långt ifrån regeringens satta beslut.

This paper aims to find out how media in different countries in the same part of a continent portray the latest development in the Korean conflict. To achieve this, the articles published by two newspapers, The Japan Times and The Korea Times, in the last five months have been analysed. The theory used to analyse the published articles is the agenda setting theory. This paper has found that geography, in the sense of proximity to the conflict, do affect what stories the newspapers publish and how they portray the story..

This thesis deals with urban planning in connection with social and spatial integration.It´s a study of a new planning project in Malmö in southern Sweden. It´s an interesting case because this new, fashionable area will be located next to areas facing socio-economical challanges and stagnation. By using two theoretical models I analyse how the visions for planning a city are formulated and applied when policy is going to be operated. My models are ?the balanced community? and ?the dual community? .The conclusion is that the focus for Malmö and Hyllie is going towards emphasing the creation of attractive but segregated districs in a city.

The purpose of this paper is to see how politicians use Internet communication in their daily work and how they use it to interact with citizens of Vasteras city. To reach my conclusions I used both theoretical methods such as literature studies and qualitative interviews with the towns 11 trustees. Accoarding to this study the politicians saw not only a lot of potentials and advantages in Internet communication but also many difficulties and obstacles. In this case the cons far exceeded the pros. One of the main reason is the bad experiences which caused by rasist attacks/threats made to politicians and also the difficulties in handling of sensitiv documents which was seen as a stress factor.

Title: Det nya Ryssland - En inblick over Rysslands utrikespolitik under 2000-taletAuthor: Tim Balder and Jens KindhLinnaeus UniversityDepartment of Political ScienceAutumn term 2011The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how the Russian foreign policy is, how it is conducted and how it may develop in the future. To do that, we are going to try to answer the following questions:What characterizes Russia's official foreign policy?What theories are there for the Russian foreign policy?How can the various theories explain the Russian foreign policy actions at the international level?Our theory is to try explaining how the Russian foreign policy is continuing its development during the 21st century through three theories known as the Western liberalism, Pragmatic nationalism and Fundamental nationalism. Furthermore, to explain Russia's foreign policy and their behaviour, we are going to use the two foreign policy doctrines from 2000 and 2008. In addition, books and articles will also be used to explain how Russia's foreign policy is conducted and developed..

This thesis studies the indirect effects of Europeanization on national political parties. I argue that Europeanization has affected the way national parties operate, and communicate with the voters, by restricting the national policy space through increased economic and political integration. Furthermore, I argue that the impact of Europeanization is likely to be reflected in electoral manifestos and changed patterns of party competition. Accordingly, Europeanization is hypothesized to change party rhetoric in a cartel-like manner by diminishing voters? expectations, and also by avoiding EU-affairs in electoral manifestos. The hypothesis suggests, moreover, that Europeanization is reflected in convergence among parties regarding the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs. The purpose of the thesis is to examine to what extent the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs has changed in electoral manifestos sinceSwedenjoined the European Union in 1995.

In 2008 USA was the one country that had the most people behind bars, both in numbers andpercentage, 2,3 million people. Of all the male convicts that were being held in custody aroundthe country's different detention facilities, thousands of them were being exposed to sexualabuse, such as rape. This essay will try to understand why there hasn?t been a bigger public outcryin the American community concerning this. It does so by studying the view of rape as a crime ofgender, by examining religion in USA and the Christian view on homosexuality, looking into thepublics thoughts on prisons and the penalty's purpose plus studying theory's of the publics viewon the prisoner.

Occupational stress and the use of alcohol to reduce stress are both separately common in our society. A few researchers have combined the two factors.The aim of this essay was to obtain an increased understanding of how male and female managers estimate their alcohol habits in relation to their occupational stress.We have interviewed nine managers who work at a social services department in Scania. Our main theories were the theory of psychosocial work environment of Lazarus, Karaseks demand/control model, epidemiology- and cultural perspective.Our results were;· Psychosocial work environment contributes to if the interviewed people experienced stress at work.· The grade of control has great influence if the interviewed people experience stress.· There weren't any correlation between stress and increased consumption of alcohol..

Resultaten av vår undersökning visar på att vi generellt sett inte kan säga om individuella investerare agerar enligt regret theory eller inte. En del resultat tyder dock på att vissa effekter inom teorin är applicerbar på individuella investerare. Vi kan urskilja trender som tyder på att individen beter sig på ett visst sett och resonerat kring varför han beter sig så. Individen föredrar alltid det säkra alternativet om förluster eller stora vinster står på spel. Om skillnaden i säkerhet är väldigt liten försummar han den.

Due to the political system in Vietnam, all organizations in Vietnam need a permit to operate in the country and consequently, have to balance their mission, their main purpose of being in the country, with the fact that they are dependant on the government to give them the permit they need to stay in the country.With this as our basis, the main focus of this essay has been to identify different types of relations that exist between the Vietnamese state and International Non Governmental Organisations (INGOs) in Vietnam. Since we have interviewed people representing INGOs, our result is based on their experience of this relationship. By using Najam's Four-C's Model, we established that the more traditional INGOs which principally provide services, predominantly have a cooperative relationship with the state, whereas radical INGOs which are committed to policy change, mostly have a relationship which is characterised by conflict..

The purpose with this essay has been to describe and understand why youth community service became a penalty in Sweden. The political discourse in which youth community service was established has been analyzed with Laclau & Mouffe´s discourse theory. A social constructivist onset and a discourse analysis were the methodological tools of the essay. The result is two folded. Youth community service was created to strengthen the constitutional state, combined with high beliefs of the social services competence.

In this examination project I look into what ways upper secondary school students conceive themselves as politically influenced before they voted for the general election of 2010. The purpose is to examine which influences the upper secondary school surroundings and the classes of civic education are contributing with to students before they voted. As a method, I have used personal, semi-structural interviews on eight upper secondary school students who all voted for a party represented in the parliament. I have asked questions about how they believe their parents, the surroundings of their school and the classes of civic education have influenced them. To separate which influences primarily the upper secondary school and the classes of civic educations have had on the students, I have selected two comparison groups of four students in each.