The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, is described in Swedish mass media. The research question of the paper is "How was president Hugo Chávez portrayed in Swedish newspapers in the 2004 Venezuelan referendum?". The answer of this question provides information about how the mass media form the image of current political events which is an important aspect of power. The applied method and theory in the study is the critical discourse analysis.

The European Union is originally an economic organization that has developed into including more social and cultural questions. These questions are especially important when the Union expands with so many different cultures and traditions to take into concideration.I have from an identity perspective studied the relation between the European Union and the candidate country of Turkey. Using theories including the Other I have discussed the relationship between us (Europe) and the Other (Turkey) and Turkey's possibilites to become a member of the Union. My conclusion will include a discussion on the basis of three dimensions; History, Economy/Politics and Religion. I believe there are hindrances for Turkey to become a member of the European Union.

In this essay, the aim is to study the role the politicians play in relation to the people they represent. This is manly a theoretically study, which focus is on the theories behind the way we choose to identify the role of politicians. We ascribe different underlying values to the role of politicians and as a result from these different values a conflict can arise. Two central terms in my discussion are the way the politicians represent people's values and meanings combined to the possibilities for the people to hold the politicians responsible. Depending on which ethic values you put to the role, you have different views about how the politicians should act.

This thesis focuses on how sewdish politicians try to argue to get other EU-countries to accept a larger responsibility for refugees. Since the war in Iraq broke out in 2003 there have been a great increse in the number of refugees arriving to Europe. Sweden have accepted a very large part of these refugees. This have sparked a debate in Sweden aboute how reasonable it is that sweden accepts a proportionaly much larger number of refugees than other countries within the EU. The swedish gouvernment policy is that responisbility for refugees and migration is something that should be shared by all members of the union.

Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

This essay is about security and safety in the city. More precisely it is concerned about the role of the institutions that aims to raise the perceived security and safety and their understanding of these concepts. I study two of the municipality's project in this field in the city of Malmö. Documents concerning these projects are analysed with a discourse analysis inspired by Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau as well as Michel Foucault. The two projects consist of one discourse each; the surveillance discourse and the discourse about meetings.

Hasan di Tiro och organisationen Acheh Sumatra National Liberation Front (ASNLF) har varit den drivande kraften i kampen för ett självständigt Acheh, som sedan 1949 varit en del av Indonesien. Deras främsta argument är att när den forna nederländska kolonin upplöstes överläts Acheh till den konstruerade nationen Indonesien, ett land utan några som helst historiska eller kulturella band med Acheh. Syftet med denna uppsats är att utföra en narrativanalys på den dagbok Hasan di Tiro skrev 1976-79 mitt under den pågående frihetskampen. Vi analyserar vilka kognitiva och ideologiska uppfattningar som ligger till grund för konstruktionen av en achehnesisk fiendebild, samt hur di Tiro refererar till Indonesien som "den Andre" i sin narrativa diskurs. Vår analys visar att fiendebilden om Indonesien bygger på en stark förankring i Achehs historiska uppfattning från kolonialtiden, samt på ett resonemang där fienden avhumaniseras och sätts i en underlägsen position i kontrast till den egna identiteten..

On the 17th of January 2002 the Swedish government presented a bill to theSwedish parliament, proposing ways of strengthening the Swedish democracythrough reforms for increased elements of participatory democracy. A publicreport on the state of the Swedish democracy had been released two years earlierwith similar enthusiasm for participatory democracy. However, the participatoryideals of these two documents were strongly criticised by a group of scholars.The aim of this thesis is to analyze and compare the arguments articulatedbetween the years 2000 and 2002 by the actors mentioned above, and to examinetheir relation to arguments concerning political participation, articulated bythinkers from previous times. By classifying the arguments into different groupsdepending on their content I find that both parties in the Swedish argumentationfocus on the effects of participatory democracy on political equality, on theefficiency of the political decision-making and the quality of the decisions beingmade, and finally on the personal character of the citizens. Among the argumentsarticulated by thinkers from previous times, similarities with the Swedishargumentation can be seen as well as important differences.

Denna uppsats handlar om vad som ledde fram till att IRA valde att lägga ner sina vapen och ingå vapenvila 1994. Vi har hittat flera olika orsaker vilka vi har klassificerat som interna eller externa. Här återfinns orsaker som kalla krigets slut, attitydförändringar, vinster med vapenvila och internationellt samarbete. För att förstå bakgrunden har vi även tittat på vikten av en avväpning i en fredprocess samt hur Sinn Féin och IRA är sammanlänkade. Slutligen har vi även gjort en applicering av våra resultat på en terroristgrupp vilken delar många av IRAs drag, PLO, men även tittat på en grupp vilken inte är så lik, ETA..

FN har sedan starten varit en tongivande gestalt för demokratisering och människorätt. Trots detta passerade 30 år innan organisationen manifesterade sitt motstånd mot den frekventa diskrimineringen av kvinnor. Därefter har jämställdhetsarbetet undergått flera genomgripande paradigmskiften. FNs fjärde globala kvinnokonferens utgjorde startskottet för ännu ett nytt progressivt tänkande kring jämställdhet och respekt för kvinnors mänskliga rättigheter.Denna uppsats behandlar FNs jämställdhetssyn med särskilt fokus på ambitionen att utforma globalt fungerande principer. Genom kritisk analys granskas FNs uppfattning om jämställdhetsproblematiken ur ett feministiskt perspektiv.

North Korea is considered to be the most autocratic dictatorship in the world today. Its citizens are denied their most basic human rights and North Koreas ambition to pursue nuclear weapons is looked upon with great fear from the international community and the US in particular. Some experts say that the threat from North Korea is far greater than the one possessed by Saddam Hussein. Although North Korea seems to inhabit all the necessary criteria for an US military intervention the United States has openly declared its diplomatic ambitions with the state. Why?With the use of realist and social construction theory this study will bring clarity to why the United States prefers diplomacy instead of a military intervention.

The thesis explores the meaning of the concept "children's best" in relation to the social Swedish parental insurance debate from a post-structuralist view. The main material has been taken from daily news papers and the methodological as well as theoretical basis is provided for by Laclau & Mouffes discourse theory. In particular has the concept "empty signifiers" been of use when investigating "children's best" as a strong argument on both the "pro" and "against" sides of the debate of an individualized parental insurance. The theoretic purpose of the thesis is also to examine the poststructuralist/feminist dilemma in order to approach a more pragmatic and useful model of the two combined provided by Alcoff and Fraser. One conclusion is that "children's best" may never have an objective answer and will be a changing concept in time, ideology preference and discoursive field.

This is a study of predictions made by the press during the financial crisis in Asia in the autumn of 1997. The study includes a qualitative, quantitative and comparative analysis of the Swedish newspapers Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Dagens Industri. In the last chapter a quantitative analysis of the newspaper Finanstidningen, that today no longer exists, has also been made for comparative reasons. A theoretical framework is also set in the study to explain how the predictions can affect the economy. The quantitative analysis shows that 2/3 of the texts in the traditional morning papers Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet included predictions about the crisis from an Asian or global perspective, while only 1/3 of the texts in the financial newspapers Dagens Industri and Finanstidningen included such predictions.

Den ojämlika representationen i våra folkvalda församlingar är ett demokratiskt problem. För att alla grupper i samhället ska få sina intressen tillgodosedda krävs en representation som speglar samhället, dess intressen och åsikter. Könskvotering kan ses som ett svar på problemet med ojämlik representation. En diskussion av medborgarskap är viktig för att förstå innebörden av representation och dess betydelse.Den här uppsatsen är en forskningsöversikt som klargör hur forskningsläget ställer sig till frågan om ojämlik representation och könskvotering som en lösning. Vi fokuserar på de argument som styr den vetenskapliga debatten.

This thesis is an attempt to understand how the traditional female gender identity is constructed and what kind of structures that are maintaining it. I also study how this identity is reflected in young women's conception of themselves and in their views upon whether they should sign in to the military service or not.The theoretical framework that I use mainly consists of theories about gender construction, male dominance and the woman's role in the nation-state.The purpose of using this theoretical approach is to illustrate that the traditional female gender identity consists of characteristics that are in opposition to the male ones. The woman should be weaker, less aggressive and more caretaking than men- in sum she is defined as the Other. The structures that constructs this identity is the male dominance, also known as the gender system and the patriarchy.This traditional female gender identity and citizenship role that historically has been allotted to women in the nation-state is still today very vivant in Sweden and is reflected in the fact that the military service is optional for women. Certain parts of this identity is also reflected in the young women that I interview, in their sense of probably not fitting in to the military service, because of their sex and the characteristics discussed above, that are associated with it..