Human rights and solidarity, as well as moral and legal responsibilities to protect people in need of refuge, seem to be principles of secondary importance within international migratory policies today. Instead, the predominant view seems to focus more and more on the protection of territorial borders, the welfare state and national identity. This international change in discourse can also be seen in the political trends of individual states. There are reasons to believe that this is a development that is also perceptible in the political rhetoric that is used in parliamentary debates, which constitute the main focus of this thesis. The aim of this study has therefore been to increase the understanding of this change in migratory policies by analyzing Swedish parliamentary debates between 1975 and 2002, using a theoretical framework focused on two different perspectives on security: First, the Copenhagen School and securitization of migration, and second, human security and human rights.

During the last years a discussion has emerged around problems with Swedish state boards trying to influence the public opinion and even political bodies through different kind of information efforts. Several observers inside and outside the academy have studied how state boards increasingly use information as an instrument and also how political bodies increasingly have given such instructions to state boards. This essay put those studies into the context of both information political history and previous theoretical interpretations in that field of research.The analytical tool consists of four ideal typical ways ('state opinions') to arrange relations between the state and the citizen. Some critics focus on problems with too much political steering and how political majorities uses state boards to spread ideological propaganda. Others highlight problems with autonomy and bureaucratic organizations taking initiatives by themselves to spread normative information.

Abstract:The aim of this study has been to investigate (theoretically as well as empirically) the problematic notions of state neutrality and political perfectionism and, in particular, the potentially vast continuum existing between these concepts both in theory and in actual political practice. In order to accomplish this, a conceptual analysis has examined (some of) the arguments for and against state neutrality and political perfectionism, different aspects of neutralism and perfectionism as well as the exact definition of the concepts of ?neutrality of justification? and ?conceptions of the good?. Using a specific (though not entirely uncontested) definition of these concepts, an empirical analysis was made of Swedish parliamentary parties and their cultural policies. The empirical part of the study seemed to confirm one of the basic premises of this study; that state neutrality and perfectionism are often (as has indeed been recognized by critics of state neutrality) intertwined in the business of everyday politics..

This essay is about North Korea, Kim Jong Il and how the future looks for the states political system. The purpose is to explain how Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regim rules the state and with help of Machiavellis theory about the Prince, tell about the states future. The essayinvestigates how well Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime are keeping their power overthe state and if their possibilities to continue in the same way are good or bad. The essayinvestigates North Koreas possibilities for further reign through Niccolo Machiavellis theory.The argument is that the North Korean state and Kim Jong Il have few or noneconditions to continue with the same political system that the state in this time have.The result shows that, through a Machiavellian perspective, Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime have bad conditions to continue ruling the state in same way as now. The investigation, unfortunately, do not show when and how North Korea will be exposed to a government switch , but the result points to a change..

This essay is about North Korea, Kim Jong Il and how the future looks for the states political system. The purpose is to explain how Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regim rules the state and with help of Machiavellis theory about the Prince, tell about the states future. The essayinvestigates how well Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime are keeping their power overthe state and if their possibilities to continue in the same way are good or bad. The essayinvestigates North Koreas possibilities for further reign through Niccolo Machiavellis theory.The argument is that the North Korean state and Kim Jong Il have few or noneconditions to continue with the same political system that the state in this time have.The result shows that, through a Machiavellian perspective, Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime have bad conditions to continue ruling the state in same way as now. The investigation, unfortunately, do not show when and how North Korea will be exposed to a government switch , but the result points to a change..

This essay is about North Korea, Kim Jong Il and how the future looks for the states political system. The purpose is to explain how Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regim rules the state and with help of Machiavellis theory about the Prince, tell about the states future. The essayinvestigates how well Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime are keeping their power overthe state and if their possibilities to continue in the same way are good or bad. The essayinvestigates North Koreas possibilities for further reign through Niccolo Machiavellis theory.The argument is that the North Korean state and Kim Jong Il have few or noneconditions to continue with the same political system that the state in this time have.The result shows that, through a Machiavellian perspective, Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime have bad conditions to continue ruling the state in same way as now. The investigation, unfortunately, do not show when and how North Korea will be exposed to a government switch , but the result points to a change..

The theory of deliberative democracy believes in collective decision-making to achieve an expanded legitimacy and rationality in the political process. It is argued that those good public dialogues best take places in public spheres between citizens, where the common interest is carefully thought about. This thesis was done with the assumption that theatre can strengthen the idea of the public sphere and create a meeting place in the civil society, where a good public dialogue can appear. To create a good public dialogue you need citizens that are corresponding and participatory. Citizens who participate in the political process develop an increased knowledge about the society and the more knowledge about the society the larger reason to participate.

The aim of this paper is to describe, visualise- and analyse media’s discursive representations of female politicians in Swedish printed media. The focus of the analysis is to show if, and how these images can be understood and interpreted in terms of a socially constructed gender stereotyped suborder. The paper takes it's theoretical and methodological departure in the discourse analysis, which is combined with feminist political theory. Feminist political theory is concretised in the use of what Yvonne Hirdman calls the "gender system" which arranges the sexes into their respective genders and is based upon two rules/principles/logics: 1) the rule of distinctive separation, and 2) the male norm. Closely related to the aim of the paper lies also the critical theoretic assumption that people has to be aware of their own part in the production and reproduction of the discourse in order to change make a change.

The purpose of this paper is to examine witch factors lays behind political decisions when reforming upper secondary school. Three major factors are used: political, economical and structural. These factors become visible by comparing the school reforms 1965 and the coming one in 2009. An analytical scheme is used to find the factors in the primary information. The study is based both political inquiries and on debate articles from newspapers and political papers.The results show that two factors are more visible than the third, and that is the ideological and structural.

This Master Thesis investigates changes in Thailand's foreign policy towards its neighbouring country Burma. It argues that Thai foreign policy towards Burma has experienced major changes during four periods between 1945 and the present. The thesis investigates these foreign policy changes during the four periods. What changes occurred? What were the reasons for the changes? What reasons dominated during what periods? The four periods of Thai foreign policy changes towards Burma and the common history of the two countries since their respective foundations does not suggest a stable peaceful relationship or a bitter hostile relationship leading to war.

During the last few years the countries in the African continent have experienced an enormous increase in female politicians on a national level. Rwanda is even the country with the highest number of female politicians in its parliament in the world. Despite this development in Africa, the quantitative research on women's political representation in the world has not yet paid attention to the situation there. Some of the surveys that have been done have even excluded countries that do not fit the homogeneous pattern ? which is precisely the problem with African countries ? for it to be possible to explain the situation with existing theories.The intention of this paper is therefore to, with all of the 53 African countries included in the study, examine whether the already existing explanatory factors regarding women's political representation also can be applied to an African context to explain the situation there.

The research of the essay will be about Solidarity, the Polish trade union that began to rise in the beginning of 1980. In more specific tendencies to the empirical study, it is interesting getting to know about when the free trade union was created with a view to liberate the Polish people from Communism.The essay will be studied as an empirical case study, with a qualitative text analysis. The content will also include how power is allocated to the political, economic and social aspects of the national, and international relations. Therefore it will be relevant to use a method of ideology analysis to the qualitative text.The result of the theoretical analysis was that it is difficult to apply the social movements into a Political change, even if it leads to success. According to this, participants in social movements are able to use the most potential and most necessities of resources, just as activists tend to do in reality..

This essay is about North Korea, Kim Jong Il and how the future looks for the states political system. The purpose is to explain how Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regim rules the state and with help of Machiavellis theory about the Prince, tell about the states future. The essayinvestigates how well Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime are keeping their power overthe state and if their possibilities to continue in the same way are good or bad. The essayinvestigates North Koreas possibilities for further reign through Niccolo Machiavellis theory.The argument is that the North Korean state and Kim Jong Il have few or noneconditions to continue with the same political system that the state in this time have.The result shows that, through a Machiavellian perspective, Kim Jong Il and the North Korean regime have bad conditions to continue ruling the state in same way as now. The investigation, unfortunately, do not show when and how North Korea will be exposed to a government switch , but the result points to a change..

People are given better opportunities to participate in polity today. Democratic equality entails that all individuals are equal and therefore they should be included in the process of making the decisions. How can participation be defined and does it mean that having the possibility to participate means that people can influence the process of making the decisions in polity process?This paper focuses on participation and influence in polity and examine the relationship between having the possibility to participate and having the possibility to actually influence polity process on more local level. Therefore I have been examining the citizens? participation and influence in Helsingborg which is my case study.

The first of the dual purposes of this work has been to describe the research that has been done regarding the root causes of terrorism and second, using a general causal theory and examining the political dimensions of it, to discuss whether or not general causal theories (grand-theories) are helpful for researchers and policy-makers when reacting to social developments in the form of terrorism. The essay is a qualitative literature analysis and I have based my studies on mostly new books treating root causes of terrorism. I have concentrated on discussing international terrorism and how political dimensions may impact the occurence of this form of political violence. The conclusions I have made is that there is no widespread consensus among researchers and scholars as to what really causes terrorism. Neither can the general model examined in chapter 5 be used to predict when and where terrorism will occur next.