Följande uppsats analyserar Italiens decentraliseringsprocess och globaliseringen i anknytning till den sicilianska kriminella gruppen, La Cosa Nostra. Ett mönster urskiljs, som tyder på att förflyttandet av makt till de lägre nivåerna i det italienska samhället spelat mindre roll för den kriminella organisationens möjligheter att påverka och skapa sig en central roll i det italienska samhället. Globaliseringen visar däremot ett tydligare mönster på att ha haft en substantiell inverkan på den kriminella aktörens arbete. LCN:s villkor har förbättrats och de kan idag på ett mer självständigt manèer, mot tidigare, agera. Det teoretiska ramverket har hämtats ifrån Risse-Kappens verk ?Bringing Transnational Relations back in?.

The EU- citizenship was established in the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. This citizenship involves rights to free movement, election rights to the European Parliament, diplomatic protection and the right to petition to the Ombudsman. In my analysis I discuss the implications of the EU- citizenship for the individual. The development and legal status of the union citizenship is examined in order to give a general understanding of the implications. In addition, I conduct a case study concerning the EU- citizenship's impact on workers rights.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the satellite states of the former Communist bloc immediately departed on a journey towards democracy and market capitalism. Among the many tasks of the newly elected governments, one was to transform the paternalist Communist welfare state into a social system that would decrease the oversized role of the state, at the same time as protecting the citizens from the hardships ensued from the transition.I have studied the evolution of new welfare systems in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary, three countries generally agreed as the most similar and most successfull transition countries of the Eastern bloc. Gøsta Esping-Andersen's prominent typology of welfare regimes, consisting of the liberal, corporatist and social democratic regime-types, has constituted the theoretical basis of the analysis. Simultaneously, applying new cases to the typology implies an element of theory testing.The study shows that 40 years of Communism and partial isolation from the West has not prevented these three countries from developing welfare states fully compatible with those of Western Europe and the Anglo-Saxon nations and that all three of them in fact fall within the scope of the corporatist regime-type..

AbstractThis paper is a comparative study of the final reports of the Norwegian and Danish power studies performed in 2003. While the Danish study found that democracy is thriving, the conclusion of the Norwegian power study was that democracy is in a crisis. The purpose of this paper is to find explanations to why the studies in two Nordic countries arrived at such different results.Methodologically, the paper consists of an ideological text analysis and critical analyses of the discourse. In order to study how the results of the power studies can differ so considerably, the following aspects have been surveyed; 1) external contexts (government inquiries); 2) work process (the researchers? background, role and co-operation); 3) the problem areas and themes studied; and 4) power perspectives.

Efter den svenska välfärdsstatens uppbyggnad ansåg man att den svenska förvaltningen var i behov av reformer. Dessa reformer skulle komma att förändra i stort sett hela den kommunala verksamheten, vissa kommuner mer än andra. Reformerna hade till stor del inspirerats av de idéer som av forskare kommit att kallas New Public Management. Då de fundamentala tankegångarna inom NPM har nyliberala förtecken, verkar det rimligt att anta att högerpartier varit mer mottalgliga för dessa idéer än vänsterpartier. Den kommunala förvandlingen har dock påverkat de flesta kommunerna oavsett politisk färg, vilket leder oss pröva teorier och hypoteser, där den ideologiska grunden som förklaringsfaktor till anammandet av dessa reformer.Genom att studera samtliga svenska kommuners tillämpande av dessa reformer kan vi med hjälp av olika förklaringsvariabler som, ideologi, ekonomi, kommuntyp, geografiskt läge, och på så sätt stärka eller falsifiera de teorier vi prövar.

This paper is a critique of the hegemonic democracy ideal in France today, the myth of the Republic. Based on critical theory, the paper also contains a normative attempt giving the chance to subaltern groups to tell their, less often heard, version of the "truth".The theoretical foundation is the ontological narrative perspective, where identities and actions are understood as being constructed by the telling of stories. The interdependent relations of different narrative dimensions are analyzed. The power over who gets to tell the story of the "truth" is understood as decided in the interaction by dimensions of metanarrativity, public narratives, ontological narratives and conceptual narrativity. The author argues, inspired by Chantal Mouffe, that consensus is an illusion based on exclusion of those that differ.

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Abstract"The war on terror" has resulted in numerous exceptions from the constitutional order. This thesis is an attempt to give empirical support to Georgio Agambens theory that these exceptions should be regarded as a constant element in modern societies based on a constitutional order. The results of the case study of the empirical exceptions in the American context give Agambens theory validity. The exception is a reappearing phenomenon, which implies that the constitutional order is fragile. What then is it that makes the legal norms fragile? In this thesis I will discuss the causality of moral panic.

Syftet med detta arbete är att mäta hur långt Ungern äntligen har framgått i demokratins konsolidering. Denna undersökning utgår ifrån liberalistiskt perspektiv och genomförts av en kvalitativ fallstudie av Ungern i teorikonsumerande sammanhang. Under arbetet tillämpats Juan Linz och Alfred Stepans universella teori, deras empiriskt användbara definition av konsoliderad demokrati och deras fem samhälleliga arenor: ett starkt civilsamhälle, ett tjänstgörande politiskt samhälle, en konstitutionsenlig rättstat, en tjänstduglig statsbyråkrati och ett institutionaliserad ekonomiskt samhälle. Forskningen visade att landets transition från moget posttotalitärt samhälle till demokrati på det hela taget var snabb och effektiv, men under den senaste tiden har den politiska situationen snarare förvärrats, inte bara av massiv utländsk skuld och en obefintlig konsensuspolitik utan också av en ovisshet, både på elit- och massnivå. Regeringen, partierna och befolkningen verkar inte vara eniga om vad det är man strävar efter idag och i framtiden: ett utökat välfärdssamhälle med sociala försäkringar och större individuella rättigheter, ett allt mer liberaliserat konsumtionssamhälle med lägre skatter fast med osäkra framtidsutsikter eller en tillbakagång till ett strikt centrerat socialistiskt system med endast kvasiprivat ägandeskap.

The findings in this case study are mainly based on material collected during a field trip with a fellow student to Laos in February-March 2005, which was sponsored by Sida through a Minor Field Study scholarship. The original interest was to study a political aid project (Governance and Administrative Reform Project Luang Prabang, GPAR LP) in a country like Laos with very complex preconditions such as one-party polity. In Laos my interest in evaluation of political aid grew mainly because I found out that the two donors in the project, Sida and the UNDP, had reached different conclusions in their respective evaluations of the project.The main interest in this thesis has been to study how donors have evaluated a political aid project. The study shows that Sida and UNDP used, what in the literature usually is referred to as, Conventional evaluation as methodology when they conducted their evaluations of GPAR LP. The study also shows that the main reason for the different points of view that are expressed in the evaluations depend on a lack of dialogue and consensus, regarding for the project crucial concepts, rather than choice of evaluation methodology.

Då en demokratisk transition, där begreppet transition refererar till den situation som uppstår mellan två olika politiska regimer, avslutas tar en konsoliderande process vid. Denna konsoliderande process ämnar till att förankra det demokratiska styrelseskicket i samhället. Begreppet konsoliderad demokrati är i sig omdebatterat.En transition, som kan vara en övergång eller en återgång, till demokrati kan föra med sig någon form av auktoritärt arv. Detta auktoritära arvet kan sedan utkristalliseras genom att de valda, civila politikerna inte kan fatta beslut på vissa områden, främst då det handlar om hanteringen av minnet från en auktoritär period. Detta kan i sin tur innebära att det demokratiska styrelseskicket inte förmår tillfredställa dess medborgare och missnöjet expanderar.

The aim of this paper is to explain and compare non-compliance of two EU-directives, ?the quality of bathing water? and ?the working time directive?. This study answers the questions: Why didn?t Sweden implement the directive on bathing water quality and the working time directive correctly? Are the reasons for non-compliance the same or different in the two cases? The paper is designed as a case study and with an explanatory attempt we explain why the two directives weren?t implemented correctly in Sweden. The theoretical approach is based on both general- and EU-specific implementation theories.

The aim of this paper is to expand the debate on globalization and its consequences from a theoretical perspective emphasizing social processes of exclusion and inclusion. I explore these social processes in dialogue with the Spanish social movement for the rights of irregular immigrants. The paper also aims to explore new forms of resistance in the context of globalization."The declinist thesis" argues that globalization has lead to a declining importance of the nation-state and the national citizenship as guarantees of rights. "The anti-declinist thesis" oppose to this picture arguing that rights still depend on national policies. I also discuss the functions of exclusion and inclusion inherited in the concepts of citizenship and nation-state.I outline the historical and political context of the movement and explore the ideas and organizational dimensions of the movement's "knowledge praxis".I conclude that national citizenship - in a broader sense as a description of the relationship between the individual and the state - seems to play a crucial role in the life situation and the possibilities of irregular migrants to organize and protest.

Swedish Development Cooperation emphasizes the need for collaboration among actors on a national level. In that context, the purpose of the thesis is to investigate how Public Private Partnership (PPP) on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) may influence the changing role of the state. The thesis is informed by Critical Discourse Analysis. In order to investigate the social constructions of reality, the thesis is a critical study of language related to ?Globalt Ansvar: Swedish Partnership for Global Responsibility? to identify through what discourses Collaboration on Corporate Social Responsibility is produced; and the implications in relation to Public Private Partnership.

AimThe purpose of this study has been to help Åtvidabergs FF to find development opportunities by reviewing the internal communication and decision making process within the organization. In this study we have used two models, Johari window and Administrative man.Our study has two main questions. The questions at issues are:? Can Åtvidabergs FF with help of the communication model Johari window identify how the internal communication can improve?? Can Åtvidabergs FF use the Administrative man as a decision model?o Will the use of the model Administrative man lead to better decisions will be made?MethodWe have made a qualitative case study in a positivistic spirit. Data has been collected through half structured interviews.