This essay presents an alternative approach to the predominant democratic analysis of the European Monetary Union. As the Treaties stipulate the political conduct within Monetary Union and put certain restrictions on the European politicians they are to some extent constitutional in their character. Essential for constitutional theory is the concept of precommitment; according to which a decision is made in t1 purposing to obstruct certain actions in t2. In light of this the aim of this essay is to investigate whether or not delegating monetary responsibility to the ECB can be seen as an example of constitutional precommitment and if so, if this constitutional perspective can add something to the predominant democratic analysis of the EMU. According to the author the EMU is by and large a form of precommitment as the leading politicians in Europe figuratively have tied their hands from intervening in the common monetary policy.

The purpose of this study was to examine what previous research says about children?s experiences living in a low-income family. Its aim was to found out what children themselves say about their life living in a low-income family and what consequences, practical and emotional, low-income environment has on children. More specifically our aim was to find out how children themselves experienced their situation compared with their peer?s economical situation.

The association between social parameters (i.e. socio-economy and level of education) and voting behaviour has been reviewed and analysed based on data from municipal council elections in Stockholm and Gothenburg in 2002. Some social scientists argue that the class voting is in decline and that new social cleavages have emerged. However, by using regression analysis techniques, this study implies a strong dependence of voting behaviour on social parameters, such as socio-economic status (SES) and level of education. Socio-economy appears to be a dominant predictor in the analysis.

Following changes in society and other influences, the ideology of political parties can evolveover time. For example, theories exist claiming that all parties in Sweden strive towards the"middle".A good example of a political party in Sweden which recently has gained entry toparliament is the Swedish Green Party (Miljöpartiet, MP).MP was initially influenced by a green ideology (ecologism) which started as a globalmovement stating that no other ideologies shared their concerns about the environment. Thegoal of the ideology was to, via an increased influence within the political system and throughsmall-scale production, increases both natural values and people's well being. By becomingelected into parliament it is plausible that the ideology of MP could have changed due to theinfluence of for example, the realities that parliamentary every day represent.The aim with this essay was to study the changes in MP's party program from the yearof 1994 and the most recent, to see if any changes have occurred related to MP's officialideology. The study was conducted using a comparative text analysis.

In 2014-2015 a large-scale Ebola epidemic occurred in West Africa. The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency was given the order to conduct the Swedish response. The purpose of this case study was to investigate the impact on project planning of the three factors: the nature of the crisis, political initiative and developing countries. In this case study the crisis was an epidemic, and the project was initiated by the Swedish Government and conducted in two developing countries. The results were intended to contribute to developed understanding and recommendations for future project managers in similar projects.

This paper takes it points of departure in a gender equality perspective and the perceived paradox between the governmental labour market policy and family policy. The first policy area has the aim to put people to work, whereas the other introduces a reform, vårdnadsbidraget, that point in the opposite direction. Which are the problem representations within the two policy areas and are the problem representations concordant or contradictive? From a constructivist perspective, langue is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. Drawing on political documents, speeches and articles formulated within the government, this paper analyzes problem representations through the use of discourse analysis and feminist political theory.

This thesis examines how the Swedish women?s suffrage movement was framed and understood through international examples in R?str?tt f?r kvinnor, the member magazine of Landsf?reningen f?r kvinnans politiska r?str?tt (LKPR). Particular attention is paid to how the movement was constructed within a broader international context and how international developments were used to legitimise and explain the struggle for women?s suffrage in Sweden. The study is grounded in a social constructivist perspective in which language is understood as constructive of meaning and based on thematic text analysis of R?str?tt f?r kvinnor between 1912 and 1919.The thesis demonstrates how ideas of international sisterhood functioned as emotional and ideological support which supported and shaped the Swedish suffrage movement.

Den här uppsatsen söker svaret på vad som genererar hög kvinnorepresentation iparlamenten. Vi har valt att göra en kvantitativforskning av alla världens friademokratier som inledning, sedan en fallstudie av Sydafrika, Mongoliet ochGhana. Avslutningsvis följer en jämförande studie mellan dessa tre länder, för attytterligare fördjupa vår forskning. Vi kommer med hjälp av våra analyser påvisaatt organisering av och nätverkande mellan kvinnor är den mest betydandevariabeln för att ett land ska kunna höja sin andel kvinnor i parlamentet..

This thesis analyzes and discusses the role of institutions concerning countries' abilities to create economic wealth. The countries that we are analyzing are the former members of the Warsaw pact and former Yugoslavia. These countries are referred to as transition countries. In order to analyze the transition countries institutional structure we are using Douglass C. North's theory regarding institutions and institutional building.

The Swedish food retail market contains of three major actors, ICA, KF and Axfood, all in all dominating 75 percent of the total market shares. The scant number of retailing actors indicates that the Swedish food retail market is a highly concentrated oligopoly, which as a fact has given rise to definite discussions and argumentations concerning the market situation. But is the food retail market imperfect and how do we reach a workable competition? Economic theory does not provide any clear answer on these questions, but is rather divided into two fundamentally different approaches to define competition: the static and the dynamic perspective on competition. In an attempt to examine the competition on local Swedish retail markets, the purpose of this study is to carry out an econometric model estimating the situation.

This essay examines the historical development of group rights for cultural minorities in Sweden between the years 1970 and 2010. The purpose of the study is to analyze the development of political measures taken at government level for different minority groups, foremost explaining the division that have arisen between measures aimed at the five national minorities, the Sámi, the Swedish Finns, the Roma, the Jews and the Tornedalians, and measures directed at other ethnic groups.My conclusions are that the division in Swedish public policy between one the one hand national minorities, and on the other hand immigrant groups, is in no way self-evident. The division has arisen from an international standard on how democratic states, such as Sweden, should treat their cultural minorities. Further, this division has had an immense impact in shaping public policy as well as determining the type of group rights introduced for minority groups in Sweden.A difference has also been found in how the minorities are perceived by state actors. Immigrant groups are currently perceived as less entitled to group rights due to their short presence in Sweden, whereas national minorities are seen as more entitled to group rights due to their long historic presence in the country.

This essay focuses on the implementation of the strategy gender mainstreaming in the European Union and the member states. It starts to identify problems connected to the implementation process and recognizes significant prerequisites for an efficient implementation of the strategy. The main problems and prerequisites are: political will, governance and structure and knowledge about gender equality. The empirical material consists of reports from the EU that touches upon gender mainstreaming and gender equality. The problems and prerequisites will be analysed in relation to the governance perspectives top-down and bottom-up and expert bureaucratic and participative democratic and gender and feminism.

Slovenia and Latvia are two examples of countries which have gone through a successful democratic transition. They were both under authoritarian rule and command economy up until their declarations of independence in the early 90s. Today they have a functional market economy and political pluralism. I have examined transition theories highlighted by Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman and from these theories sought the explanations to what lies behind the successful transitions of these two countries. The transition in Slovenia was affected by liberalization from within the ruling communist party which then controlled much of the transition process. A relatively large civil society and the fact that Slovenia was not involved in the Balkan War also contributed to the short process.

The current trend towards globalisation and democratisation has made the theories of politics in pluralistic societies, and how to make them work, of particular interest and concern. Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy is an important influence in this field. At the same time the importance of civil society in transition studies and democratisation processes has been reinforced over the last thirty years. However, the complex political situation that plural societies face, creates obstacles for a healthy civil society. This thesis is based on a case study of Lebanon, a country with deep ethnic divisions and a government that resembles a consociational democracy.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the existence ofpersonalization within Swedish political parties along withhow the parties work with this phenomena in order to achievemore voters.The method used is personal interviews with politiciansfrom four different government parties. As a complement, interviews with a political expert was also made. All parties use personalization in different ways as a strategy tocreate dialogues and relationships with both media and voters. We distinguished two sorts of personalization: individualization and privatization, and discovered that not all parties use both..