The state of Israel is known as the only democracy in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is aspects in the Israelis society that can be questioned in terms of liberal democracy.Areas of concerns in the study are the Israeli official policy's concerning inclusion and exclusion of their citizens in areas of property owning, personal status and the duty of military service.The results show that the Israeli society distinguishes their citizens in these areas by their ethnic origin, in favour for the Jewish population. The law prohibits changes in the states Jewish character. One clear example how this is presented is that a Jew is prohibited to marry a non-Jew. The results show also that this official policy by the Israeli state violates important principles of liberal democracy.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

Teorier om kön och ledarskap framhåller att könsordningen, sociala och kulturellauppfattningar om kön samt stereotyper om manligt och kvinnligt försvårar förkvinnor att nå högre ledande befattningar. Genom samtalsintervjuer med fempersoner vilka är involverade i rekryteringen av förvaltningschefer i Helsingborgs,Lunds och Malmö kommun har vi undersökt vilka uppfattningar ochföreställningar som kan påverka rekrytering av förvaltningschefer ur ettkönsperspektiv. Vi har funnit att könsrelaterade värderingar och fenomen somhomosocial reproduktion har en inverkan på rekryteringar av förvaltningschefer ide tre undersökta kommunerna. Vi har dessutom funnit att kommunerna betonarreflektion och handlingskraft avseende köns- och jämställdhetsfrågor irekryteringsprocesserna i olika utsträckning. Att det är nödvändigt med en balansmellan reflektion och handling anser både vi och de befintliga teorierna är enförutsättning för att jämställdhet ska beaktas i rekryteringen..

The aim of this comparative study is to analyse the French and the Polish regional governance in order to see if there are any differences in their regional ruling systems. Further more I will study their different possibilities in taking part in the European Union regional political market. The shape of the regional systems will be explored both organisationally (study of the institutional entities of the regional construction) and functionally (study of the competencies of the regional body etcetera) to focus on its cause on the regional development. My over all focus will be to find out whether regional rule means differently in the countries France and Poland.Several questions are dealt with and the two main ones are as follows; How do the different structures of the form of government in France and Poland influence the governance on the regional level? Do Poland, as a new member state of the European Union, have what it takes to face the challenges of the new membership; or are there a complex of problems arising from the admittance that prevent its regions from fully taking part in the European regional political market?Some of my conclusions are as follows;There are major differences between the two countries when it comes to their regional ruling systems leading to different abilities in taking part in the European regional political market.

The civil war in Sierra Leone was a very complicated conflict, both in its origin as well as in its realization. Many actors, along with the diamond trade, played vital parts in making the war carry on for a decade. In this paper I will try to clarify the relations between the actors and the diamonds, first and foremost the part the diamonds played in the conflicts start and continuation. I will also show what has happened in the country and in the diamond industry after the wars conclusion. What I find is that diamonds did not play the only part in the origin of the conflict but that the poor economic state the country was in had its part.

This thesis analyses the 2005 UK presidency of the Council, and more particularly the negotiations on the future financing of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to discuss whether the holding of the presidency implies political influence for the member state. To analyse the power of the country holding the chair the thesis focuses on the presidency functions of brokering and leadership. The theory suggests that the influence of the presidency is derived from informational and procedural power resources, as well as some leadership resources, such as coercion and reward. A case study was used to analyse whether these power resources were used by the British presidency.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze and examine India's economic reforms which the country introduced on the government's own initiative in the early 1990s after decades of practicing isolationism. The analysis entails a thorough systematic examination of possible factors that determined the decision to implement the reforms. These factors are derived from two models developed by scholars within the field of foreign policy.The research is performed through an examination where the possible factors for the reforms have been examined on a three-level basis; system-, state- and individual level. It is a qualitative case study that seeks to explain not only why the Indian government implemented the reforms but also to evaluate the validity of the models to the extent that they stand in accordance with the case of India.The conclusion presented in this thesis is that one model works better for explaining the case of India. The model lie emphasis on structural changes, a crisis and political entrepreneurs committed to a certain type of reforms as a prerequisite for policy change to take place.

In 1994 it was decided that a new network based organizational model was to be initiated to face the problems of some of the gender inequalities in Sweden. The organisation structure was named Resource Centre for Women (ResursCentrum för kvinnor).This essay constitutes a qualitative case study of governing, with this organisation structure as my field of inquiry. My ambition has been to outline and explain what kind of governing has been used and how it works. I have also tried to identify potential changes of the ways of governing over time. To help me out with that task, I have applied a theoretical framework, characterized of a governance perspective, and have used terms as: governing with networks, partnership, projects and visionary government to interpret my empiric material.My result shows that there have been various changes in the ways of governing, from a more hierarchal government form of governing to a more governance based one..

In this thesis I discuss and analyze the integration policy of the community Landskrona, if they have any at all and how they in that case use it in their daily work to counteract the obvious problems with segregation, racism and negative attitudes towards people with other ethnic background than Swedish.During the second half of the 20th century Sweden has received a lot of immigrants who built our country and contributed to the rich variety of people we see today. Landskrona was one of the towns who received a lot according to its size, and with the economic crisis in the 1990s it was easy to blame the immigrants for our own deteriorated situation.Today Landskrona is working for an implementation of integration policies in all institutions and organizations to make it a matter of course just like equality. It is not the ethnic background that is the problem; it is being an outsider and economically segregated that lead to resistance of the society. The community is prioritizing the four areas job for everyone, living, education and culture..

In 1988 the Swedish Social Democratic Party decided to reform the tax system. In this essay I analyse the motives behind their acting on a basis of the party strategic theories of Przeworski and Sjöblom. The reform commonly referred to as the tax reform of the century, was although they considered that it was a high risk project pursued together with the Liberal Party. The new tax system implicated a less progressive income tax scale, actions against tax avoidance and raised value-added tax. The empirical analysis is primarily based on memoirs written by the key actors.

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on a present trend of professionalization in Swedish local environmental politics, which have recently seen a decline in active participation of the citizens in favor of an increased governmental regulation. With the aim to closer investigate this relatively new phenomenon, the paper is a qualitative single case-study of environmental policies in the Swedish municipality of Karlskrona. In this case, the municipality is obviously balancing between regarding the interests of the national level and the interests of its own citizens at the same time. This motivates the use of system-theory, and relates to the classical political paradox between participation and efficiency which is also a present theme in the paper.This text-analysis based on interviews with personnel and documents from the municipality shows a visible trend of professionalization in the local politics of the municipality of Karlskrona, from a large grade of participation and a strong bottom-up approach in the days of Agenda 21 to now being more strongly top-down defined by national environmental objectives and principally operated on a professional level..

Uppsatsen beskiver den europeisering av den svenska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen som har skett sedan det svenska inträdet i den europeiska unionen. Genom att utgå från konstruktiv teori förklarar arbetet hur normer inom det europeiska utrikes- och säkerhetssamarbetet (CFSP) förs över till den svenska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen. I arbetet framhålls att den svenska säkerhetspolitiken, efter det kalla krigets slut och Sveriges medlemskap i EU, i allt större utsträckning börjat korrelera med den europeiska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen. Korrelation framträder framförallt när den svenska neutralitetspolitiken studeras, en politik som omvärderats sedan inträdet i EU. Uppsatsen belyser också hur både den svenska och den europeiska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen har förändrats över tid..

What every theory of democracy has in common is a reference to ?a people? who are, in one way or another, collectively self-governing. Given that, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the so called boundary problem of democratic theory, or, in other words, the question of who should be included in the democratic community. Lately, the historically given boundaries have been questioned in favour of a cosmopolitan democracy. Still, little has been said about the boundary problem in general, especially from a theoretical point of view.

Institutionell teori förklarar socialt liv genom att undersöka institutioners påverkan på sociala relationer. Institutionella föreställningar ses som närvarande i alla sociala relationer genom kulturella, kognitiva och normativa institutionella element, som ges stor betydelse i denna teoribildning. Denna uppsats syftar till att problematisera institutionell teori genom att införa maktaspekter i teoribildningens förklaringsmodeller eftersom detta hittills varit ovanligt i institutionella analyser. Särskilt de förklaringsmodeller som betonar kulturella och kognitiva element har saknat maktaspekter. Uppsatsen är ett integrationsförsök mellan institutionell teori och maktteori.

Uppsatsen granskar det avtal mellan Indien och USA som ingicks under 2006.Utifrån det rationella aktörsperspektivet har vi undersökt hur man kan förklara debeslut USA och Indien tog då de ingick avtal med varandra. Vi har använt oss avfyra grundbultar som utgångspunkt: målsättning, alternativ, valmöjligheter ochkonsekvenser. Med dessa fyra bultar har vi försökt förstå vilka för- och nackdelarIndien respektive USA haft när de ingick avtalet och hur de kan ha resonerat införundertecknandet av avtalet. Vi har också försökt se vilka konsekvenser avtalet kanha fått för icke-spridningsavtalet NPT och för andra länder i världen.Vi kom fram till att både Indien och USA agerat rationellt utifrån sinanationella intressen och att detta samarbete trots flera risker är betydande för bådaländerna och värt de uppoffringar som man gjort..