AbstractDetta arbete är en fallstudie på Lund's kommun och det som skedde där under nittiotalet. Huvudfoku's ligger på två kommunreformer som innebar kommundelsnämnderna's införande och avskaffande. Vår frågeställning har varit; Vilka förändringar har Lund's kommun gått igenom? Och; Hur kan man förstå dessa förändringar? Teorin består av flera olika vinklar där man problematiserar de moderna kommunerna's arbete. Även mer klassisk organisationsteori med ett foku's på kulturperspektivet har använt's.

Uppsatsens analysområde är uppkomsten av regional integration och prägeln på samarbetet inom den Afrikanska unionen. På en kontinent som ofta betraktas av omvärlden som ett hjälplöst problemområde har unionen uppstått som ett forum för samarbete och enighet. Kontexten ur vilken Afrikanska unionen uppkom skiljer sig från tidigare afrikanska samarbeten. Med hjälp av integrationsteorin neofunktionalism och systemteorin neorealism undersöks, utifrån sex hypoteser, faktorer som har bidragit till unionens existens och vad den präglas av idag. Fokus ligger på unionen i sig och inte på teorierna.

After the last election Sweden has got a government that claims to be feminist. This thesis discusses whether the change of labels has also brought along policy formulated in a feminist way, arguing that the way policy is expressed affects how people see a certain problem. Three policy proposals are analysed, and in only one case the government seems to have been influenced by feminist ideas. The other proposals partly support claims made by new institutionalism that norms and routines in an organisation work to resist policy change, but also shows that feminist ideas are resisted more actively. The fact that so called policy entrepreneurs was present in the policy process at a certain period in time, probably counts for one explanation to the exceptional policy.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att söka utröna huruvida etnicitet kan försvåra införandet av de villkorade flerpartival som är ett resultat av politisk konditionalitet. Inledningsvis genomförs en presentation av de teoretiska ramverk som omger den politiska konditionaliteten samt valbeteende i förhållande till politiserad etnicitet, och därefter söker jag applicera dessa på Zimbabwe och Kenya. Syftet är att avgöra huruvida det föreligger någon markant skillnad mellan länderna gällande den politiserade etnicitetens påverkan på de, medelst politisk konditionalitet, villkorade representativa flerpartivalen. Metoden är empirisk utifrån sekundärlitteratur, men i förlängningen även komparativ. En diskussionsdel, vari valen i förhållande till de teoretiska ramverken problematiseras, leder fram till slutsatsen att politiserad etnicitet kan få negativa konsekvenser för villkorade val om det finns en etnisk grupp som är i synnerlig majoritet..

Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

Although Sweden has democracy implemented in its Constitution, because of being a monarchy, it has a non-elected Head of State. The purpose of this thesis is on the one hand to show if it is possible to normatively legitimate the Swedish monarchy and on the other hand to display if and how the three biggest Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter and Expressen justify monarchy by making a content-oriented analysis of their coverage of King Carl XVI Gustaf's political statement during his state visit in Brunei 2004.By using consequentialism and deontology as perspectives I will show that it overall is not possible to normatively justify the Swedish monarchy compared to a Swedish republic with an elected Head of State. This is mainly because democracy is implemented in the Swedish Constitution. In all three newspapers there is only little debate on the Constitution. Most commonly journalists criticize the King's statement but not monarchy as an institution.

This thesis examines and evaluates user boards in Swedish public schools from a democratic perspective. In order to evaluate whether the democratic values are fulfilled five different democratic ideals are selected to serve as a theoretical fundament. These ideals derive from the Swedish Government Official Reports that preceded the reform of user boards in schools, and are identified as the following: participation, dialogue, trust, democratic schooling and influence. The study is based on cases and involves two schools with user boards and two comparative schools with informal parental influence, so called school advisory boards. The study concludes that the main difference between the two types of parental influence is the level of formality.

This thesis deals with the concept of soft balancing, traditionally defined as the diplomatic means of restraining a dominant state's ability to exercise its military power. As the dominant power in today's unipolar system, the United States, and other states? behaviour towards it, is the focus of analysis. The aim of this thesis is to explore the possibilities of developing the concept of soft balancing so as to include strategies to restrain also the political and economic capabilities of a dominant power. The thesis also considers the possibilities of soft balancing that small states ? to a large extent overlooked in existing theories on the subject - can possess.As a state with policies that aim to reduce the U.S.

This study analyzes how civil society contributes to the democratic development in a Nicaragua governed by the sandinist party FSLN. The empirical focus lays at the relationship between state and the civil society. By using a conceptual framework outlined by Caroline Boussard, the civil society is being analyzed as an actor with a democracy-building potential that is supported or constrained by a political context.The civil society is divided between traditional social movement and more newly borned NGOs. Social movements tend to approach the government comparatively to NGOs, which adopt a highly critical attitude. In contrast to NGOs, the traditional social movements are improving their democratic functions as a counterpart while NGOs confine its democratic potential to an agenda setter drawing attention to democratic deficits.

Denna uppsats har som syfte att undersöka och jämföra Lijphars och Horowitz teorier om etniska konflikter. Uppsatsen tittar dels på teorierna och deras grunder och dels på fallen av etniska konflikter i Bosnien och Makedonien. Uppsatsen försöker att urskilja viktiga detaljer och utgångspunkter som ligger i grunden för teorierna och deras förslag på lösningar av etniska konflikter. Genom att undersöka Dayton ? avtalet som reglerar maktdelningen i Bosnien och författningsförändringarna i Makedonien som indirekt påverkar det multipolära systemet i landet.

This article seeks to re-imagine the Alandish hembygdsrätt to a regional citizenship. Hembygdsrätt is a judicial tool that regulates acquisition of property and voting rights. Its a central part of the autonomy as it constitutes a social-border between Finns and Alanders.However as Åland and Finland became members of the European Union questions arouse concerning the legitimacy of the current statues. The community argued that it could be considered as a breach of the anti-discrimination principle. Therefore Alandish autonomy was recognized as an exception in the joint-accession treaty of Finland and Åland.

Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has gained competence in the decision-making process and the Parliament is today one of two decision-making institution, next to the Ministers of Council. In this study the main focus has been to shed light over the negotiation culture within the European Parliament, which up till now has been a neglected research area. This is of great significance because the internal negotiations in the European Parliament decide the external negotiation position with the other institutions.After face-to-face interviews with MEP:s and assistants I have been able to identify certain characteristics to create an understanding of the negotiation culture in Europe's elected Parliament. The negotiations are oriented towards a problems-solving approach and the prevailing apprehension is consensus-based negotiations instead of the existence of political blocks. The committees are stronger than the European party groups, which further encourage negotiation.

Uppsatsen studerar demokratiaspekter i den skånska revisionen. Forskarnasoenighet om påståendena; "i revisionens arbete innefattas enbart ekonomi" och"revision har kvalitativa och demokratiska aspekter" genomsyrar uppsatsen. Medhjälp av idéanalys studeras granskningsrapporter utförda åren 2002 och 2008 utavRegion Skånes revisorer. Region Skåne som självstyrelseorgan bildades avekonomiska och demokrasiska syften. Utifrån demokratiska teorier,ansvarsfördelning, insyn och öppenhet undersöks granskningsrapporterna.

Detta är en komparativ teoriutvecklande studie av fallen Baskien och Katalonien. Vi behandlar civilsamhället och nationalismens roll i regionernas strävan efter ökat självstyre. Med hjälp av en historisk tillbakablick söker vi förklaringar till den samtida politiken. Resultatet leder till att vi kompletterar en väl etablerad teori på området nationalism. Vi kommer fram till att både det politiska maktutövandet och civilsamhället är bidragande förklaringsfaktorer till uppkomsten av nationalism i de två regionerna.

Sjukvården har sedan slutet av åttiotalet varit satt under en konstant press för att sänka sina utgifter. Reformer och besparingar har blivit en del av vårdarbetets vardag. I denna uppsats försöker vi skapa oss en bild av hur läkaren, som är vårdens viktigaste aktör, ser på den ?nya? sjukvården.Med stöd i teori har vi sökt svaret hos den enda tillförlitliga källan som finns att tillgå, läkarna själva. Ett antal intervjuer gav oss en bild av hur läkaren ser på sitt arbete och sin roll i sjukvården.