This essay studies the relationship between politicians and municipal chief officers from the point of view of the bureaucracy and its role in democracy and the substance of the chief position. I conducted interviews and observations with politicians and senior officials from the local public administration in Bromölla. The roles of the chief officer and politicians have certain common characteristics which makes it difficult to separate them. Senior officials working full time in contrast to part time politicians give them an advantage in the political process. Budget cut backs both enhance the role of politicians and chief officers in the administrative organisation.

This thesis uses critical discourse analysis to examine how the English-speaking press in Hong Kong constructs the conflict between the political movement Occupy Central and the Chinese central government. The empirical material consists of ten articles from the region?s two largest English-speaking newspapers, Hong Kong?s oldest newspaper, the South China Morning Post, and China?s only national English-speaking newspaper, the China Daily. Building on the works of Teun van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Ruth Wodak and John E. Richardson it examines what political ideologies that are favoured by the press and what attitude the press shows for democratic development.

This essay deals with development in Latin America. We have picked out some factors that the theories in development theory emphasize on. The first section of the study consists of a statistical analysis, were the main purposes are to study the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent and to choose which two countries we should focus on in the next section. The countries we decided to study were Costa Rica and Nicaragua, because these countries have shown very different levels of development. From this study we have concluded that political stability, economical investements and human investments are the most important factors when creating development..

This study focuses on the encounter between the academic librarian and the academic library user with a specific need for information. The aim of the study is to examine the process of mediation of information and to uncover any inherent problems or systemic inertia that may occur within that process.Special attention has been given to information-seeking behaviour in the digital age and the possibility of viewing information literacy as a meta-literacy. The difference between the surface web and the academic invis- ible web is also investigated. Empirical data was collected by the use of ethnographic fieldwork at the Karolin- ska Institutet University Library over a period of five weeks. The data is analysed using actor-network theory as a point of departure.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the rise of the Tea Party movement in the United States. By using a known theory within social movement studies, the political process theory, this thesis look into the factors that could have played a role in the rise and fast mobilization of the Tea Party movement. The political process theory consists of three parts and hence looks into both the political structure of, in this case, the United States, how mobilizing structures have been used and into the cultural framing used by the Tea Party to create their identity. In order to bring structure to the thesis, the three theory parts have been transformed into analysis models. These give a very good idea of all the factors that could have played a part and therefore also a good way to describe the rise of the Tea Party movement.The research confirm what the political process theory says, that the Tea Party movements rise came at a time when there were a mix of factors at play, both structural and cultural, creating an opportunity that the Tea Party took.

In this essay I discuss and analyse if we can witness any signs on regional dimension due to regional representation from our elected representatives in the five constituencies Malmö, Blekinge, Norrbotten, Uppsala and Stockholm. Two seperate terms of office between 1991-94 and 1998-2002 has been compared. In political science there has been much debate about the relationship between voters and their elected. By measuring each and everyone elected representatives in the work of produce introduced bills towards their own constitiency during both terms I have tried to see if there is an occurence of a regional dimension.The theory that´s been applied is based on geographical representation where one might aspect that central metropolitan areas and peripheral regions is somewhat over-represented in legislatures. By using a method of comparison between the five chosen constituencies and theirs elected representatives I have come the the conclusion that there is a weak tendency that this might be the case seen to a regional dimension perspective..

After the tsunami disaster in December 2004 many arguments were heared that one oft the major reasons behind the poor Swedish effort connected to the evacuation and health care of the Swedish citizens in Thailand right after the incident is the Swedish model with independent government authorities. By comparing the constitution, the political decision making tradition by the ministers and the handling of the catastrophe in the tree Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Finland, plus analysing the behaviour of the Swedish foreign and prime minister from a rational choose inspired individual decision making theory the research shows that there is no proof that a constitutional change in Sweden into the traditional model with government authorities controlled by the ministers alone would led to a more effective crisis handling by the government due to crises concerning Swedish citizens out states. Although the research shows that the constitution and the tradition of decision making in the government provides the basic condition of the ministers individual rational decision making.

Uppsatsen granskar systemet för utjämning mellan kommunerna ur political economy- och tillväxtperspektiv. Political economy-analysen undersöker i vilken utsträckning systemets utformning möjliggör politiskt motiverad taktisk omfördelning. Av denna analys framgår att det rådande statsbidrags- och utjämningssystemet ger ett mycket begränsat utrymme för diskretionära bidrag. Den övergripande slutsatsen av political economy-analysen är att det finns en påtaglig kontrast mellan ansatserna i de akademiska studierna och de offentliga utredningarna. Analysen ur tillväxtperspektiv granskar vilka effekter långtgående kommunutjämning kan tänkas ha på arbetskraftsrörligheten, samt vilka konsekvenser detta kan tänkas ha för den långsiktiga ekonomiska tillväxten.

The purpose of this thesis was to increase our understanding of how the social service in Sweden deals with reported incidents of addiction to medicines. Another purpose was to point out the different opinions concerning addiction to medicines amongst actors as well as possible ways to handle the problem.We have conducted a quantitative and qualitative e-mail survey targeting all communities in Sweden, with the ambition of gaining further knowledge about the role and responsibility of the social service concerning reports of addiction to medicines. Two quantitative questions were one asked about how many clients requested/were reported for needing help with their drug abuse alone, and the second question about how many clients needing help for drug abuse as a part of a wider addiction.The survey revealed that the social services judge their role/responsibility differently; some take the main responsibility while others think that drug abuse is created by the general health care and should be handled by this organization as well. In relation to the estimated amount of drug addicts in Sweden only a small part are in contact with the social service..

Gardens from the first decades of the 20th century are often described as seen from a sublime ownership perspective. It may be artists, authors or some other intellectuals, they are all attributed as creators of the referred estate. As far as practically oriented gardeners, constructors or garden consultants are mentioned, they are consequently seen as the mere instruments for carrying out the intentions of the actual owners. Referring to those circumstances it is however well worth notifying that all properties, and in particular the gardens belonging to it, are submitted to a constant change. For anyone acquainted with garden work, it is quite obvious that the gardens vitality is closely related to the ongoing design process, by which form and content are created and re-created.

The purpose of the study is to examine eight individuals? experiences and conceptions of political consumerism. Main notions in the study are concepts like reshaping of the politics, morality and individualization. The method of choice is qualitative interview and grounded theory. Theories that deal with consumer society, subpolitics and individualization constitute the theoretical framework.

AbstractEssay in political science, C-level, by Samanta Pudic´, spring semester 2008. Tutor: Susan Marton. ?The relationship between national government and local municipality when a refugee centre shall be located.?The purpose of this essay is to examine the relationship between government and municipality with the help from the interdependens theory when a refugee centre is located. To be able to say something about the relationship between those two actors I have been using two municipalities as examples.

Abstract The aim of this essay has been to deepen the knowledge of how professional social workers, therapists and almoners experience working with children who have psychical disturbed parents. By interviews we have examined the experiences of people who, through their work, comes in contact with children whose parents suffer from psychical disturbance. In our interviews we have concentrated on specific themes, such as working with these children, the situation these children are in, parenthood and cooperation with other actors in the field of action. Literature has earlier shown that children with psychical disturbed parents have been difficult to discover. This was confirmed in our study.

The globalization of political and economic processes is a growing moral concern for theologians and political philosophers alike. My thesis aims to outline, analyze, and compare church studies of globalization with global theories of justice.To do this, I draw upon recent studies of globalization made by the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The WCC and LWF are two global reaching church organizations. They have a common aim of uniting churches for ecumenical dialogue and are involved in social, economic, political, and ecological questions. The WCC and LWF analyze globalization by applying biblical and theological principles from the Christian tradition.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the concept of empowerment and its meaning in the political document "En Förnyad Folkhälsopolitik" from the present Swedish government, containing guidelines and politics in the area of public health. The underlying question was if it could be considered as representative for some kind of general "empowerment approach" since the concept is central to the very definition of social work by the International Federation of Social Workers IFSW and International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW).By comparing its definition and consequences in the document with a historical review of different contexts of empowerment the conclusion was made that such a common approach doesn´t exist at all. The meaning of empowerment in the central document showed some similarities with the "northamerican" version of the concept represented by the social scientist Charles Murray, which is just one of the political meanings of empowerment. Alternative ways of understanding the concept was also presented such as being a tool of a constant conflict between central political principles or as a fashionable but not important word. Another alternative was to consider it a means of power through witch different political discourses tries to dominate the world..