This study aims to investigate the origin and the development of a certain type of decision phenomena, namely political decision chains. A political decision chain is defined as a seemingly rational decision being made, that is reverted through a new decision and this for other reasons than the original decision being regarded as having fulfilled its intended purpose. The essay attempts to explain the occurrence of these decision chains through a case study in order to thoroughly examine the complexities that surround political decisions overall. The essay concludes that uncontrollable factors and chance to a large extent affect the origin of these chains, allowing actors to change the political agenda according to their preferences. The relative weighting of these factors that is made by the actors, which exist within the decision chain, makes them underestimate the relative power of other actors that may have different preferences.

I have studied how network in a broad sense can affect decision-making. The primary purpose is to see if the political initiative somewhere disappears when it comes to understand the relations between power, actors and politics. The study discuss in a theoretical area that concerns the reliability in neoinstitutionalism to use as an analytical instrument. Some criticism is given to the theoretical standpoint in the sense that there is no power perspective included in the theory. I include a discussion about a concept of power, which I include to the theory.

The debate concerning face veiling has been brought in to view by several governments in Europe. Luca Mavelli studies the debate regarding the burqa using the concept of securitization and from that the objective of this study is to analyze the medial- and the political discourse in Sweden regarding the burqa. The formulated questions drawn from this is; who are the securitizing actors? According to the securitization actors, who can de defined as a referent object? Wherein is the threat according to the securitizing actors? Is it possible to recognize a difference between the medial and the political discourse?Furthermore the paper adopts the theoretical framework that is the concept of securitization, formulated by the Copenhagen School of security. The methodological foundation is based on a social constructivist approach and consequently uses Norman Faircloughs critical discourse analyzes as an analytical tool.

This is an empiric, qualitative, case study of cooperation between two public organizations in Ystad, Sweden (Försäkringskassan and Ystad kommun). The aim of the study is to illuminate why they cooperate and what happen with the idea to cooperate and the organizations when they do. The theoretical tools used are influenced by institutional theory. A translationmodel is used to illustrate what the local actors do with the idea when a decision is made to adopt it and how it affects the actors. The study suggests that the cooperation in Ystad called One Stop Shop is partly done because it's a popular way of organizing public organizations in Sweden and partly because försäkringskassan, aim to upgrade their organization identity.

In 2002 the local council of Lund, Sweden, decides to implement the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. A number of actors, such as the state, the civil society, the political society and the bureaucracy, participate in the political process with different authority and points of departure. This thesis studies the actors´ interactions from an inside perspective by applying concepts such as political power, democracy and implementation. The methodological departure is action research from within, a local NGO, the local board of Save the Children Sweden. The results of the study indicate that governance and steering of the implementation process at the communal level is weak.

Because of a more globalised world the national states have been forced to make structural changes at both national, regional and local level to cope with different challenges. The regional community has become an important area which has resulted in a policy of more self governing, both for the regional and the local level.The aim of the thesis is to study the relation between regional and local level in the partnerships organisation. To fulfil the aim of the thesis, a case study of Region Skåne is used. The analyse is based on expressions such as cooperation, conflict, power and influence.The result of the thesis confirms that the opinion between the regional and the local level is very different. The representatives from Region Skåne experience the cooperation as quite good because it creates an opportunity for discussions and a possibility to learn from the other actors which in turn creates a qualification in the exchange of knowledge.

The centre of attention in this essay is on public-private-partnerships in Swedish city planning. It discusses the phenomenon and tries to identify the problems and possibilities that may appear when private and public actors are trying to work together to plan new cities or parts of cities in a process with network structures. The main questions that is asked is ?what vision for the city can we se, and who's vision is it?? together with the question of where the actual power to make the city plan and the vision can be find. The soon-to-be-built area Ulriksdal in Stockholm were Peab AB and Solna Stad stands as main actors has been chosen to illustrate the possible problems and is analysed from different angles, but the writers intention is also to say something on the matter in general.

This thesis examines the relationship between OECD-DAC and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) within an aid efficiency context. The ability for these two actors to cooperate is highly important and determines the outcome for a major part of the development aid in the new millennium. The development agenda for the new millennium emphasizes aid efficiency as a key to a more successful aid, and this requires increased cooperation between all actors. The analysis made is a discourse analysis. The discourse of aid efficiency is analyzed, both its preconditions and results.The analyze finds out that there is a gap between OECD-DAC and CSOs in terms of how to handle aid efficiency.

The aim of the thesis is to examine how central collective actors in the Swedish subsystem of renewable fuels use their positions of power and influence to their own specific interests and needs. In particular the thesis looks at the problems of climate change and oil scarcity and how renewable fuels are described as a potential solution. Using agenda setting theory and Steven Lukes three dimensions of power as a framework, five actors are examined and analysed. The study has been done in two parts. In the first part policy documents are analysed concerning the actors general stance towards renewable fuels, and how this is communicated to the media, politicians and public.

AbstractCities are once again becoming the locus of economic, social and political processes. The effect of these processes on the city is two-fold: one one hand they threaten to fragment and dislocate the city and the actors within them, on the other hand they give actors within cities new opportunities to react and mobilize resources towards different strategies of integration. The latter gives rise to what Patrick Le Galès calls the collective actor-city. The aim of this thesis is to explore the notion of the city as a collective actor in a swedish context by utilizing Le Galès theory of european cities as collective actors in an abductive case study on the city of Malmoe. By utilizing Le Galès five dimensions that make up a collective actor I analyze interviews conducted with city officals aswell as documents produced from the city wide plan of action Welfare for everybody.

Is accountability possible in global environmental governance? The purpose ofthis thesis is to examine if accountability is possible in global environmental governance. From an accountability perspective the thesis tries to illuminate global environmental governance. An investigation about the conceptaccountability is made and the thesis also illuminates the possible problems that exist in global environmental governance which exist of such a large amounts of different and often private actors. By investigating and examine the concept of accountability from different aspects and by using Global Compact as a example of global environmental governance the thesis try to answer if accountability actually exist in global environmental governance and in what way it is possible to demand accountability.

The new media landscape is growing by the minute with blogs, web pages and different communities. The latest phenomenon that has grown rapidly throughout the world is Facebook. This is at new platform for communications where individuals can meet and socialise. Even political actors have started to appear on this community to work and spread their opinions. Several of the Swedish political parties are represented with different group, among them we have the two biggest political youth organisations: MUF (Young conservatives) and SSU(Young socialists).This study examines how Facebook can be used as a tool to create opinion.

This study analyzes the political view of criminality and crime politics in three political parties in the Swedish parliament, Socialdemokraterna, Folkpartiet and Moderaterna. The study seeks to describe which kind of view these parties present on the criminality in our society. The material for this study is the ideologies that the parties descend from which are, socialism, liberalism and conservatism, the political programs of these three parties have also been studied as well as the parties proposals, political documents in the Swedish parliament. The current public debate shows that the crime politics is an attractive question and the parties may seem to have similar proposals on how to lower the criminality in our society. The theory that has been used to describe the results of the study is ?actors and structures? and the results are related to this theory as well as the theory has been used as an instrument to explain and sort the material and the results.The results of the study show that the parties are different in their views on criminality as a problem in our society.

The chosen task in this thesis is to compare two projects of importance on the impact on the approach to graffiti in Norrköping and Göteborg. My main source for empirical findings was interviews. I have examined the Norrköping project Canslit including legal graffiti walls and a graffiti school and the political process around it. This was compared to the Göteborg project kulturprojekt Röda Sten, which is a cultural center that happens to be covered in illegal graffiti. The conclusion was that due to the very detailed plans and well-functioning communications between actors in the Norrköping project, this has resulted in a creative, tolerant approach to graffiti still with low rate of illegal graffiti.

This paper examines if European integration has had an impact on national political parties by looking at the stances of the Swedish Green Party and the Left Party on the issue of the European Community and the European Union over time. With the development of the European Community and the European Union, national political parties face the challenge of an emerging political arena. European integration research has recently become more involved with what is called europeanization and political integration within the member states them self, this paper aims to provide further leverage to the thesis that national political actors undergo some degree of europeanization and are politically integrated in the EU, by examining manifestos of two historically eurosceptic Swedish political parties. The theoretical framework provided by neo-functional integration theory as well as europeanization is used to examine the empirical material in order to see if the political parties at the focal point of this study can be said to have undergone a change in political policy regarding the EC and EU, both in quantity and content. The analysis show that indeed both parties has undergone a change and what might be considered a europeanization, considering that the presence of the EU as a political issue seem to have risen in prominence and importance in the examined manifestos.