In this thesis I discuss and analyse the relationship between USA and Europe since the end of the Cold War. Many authors claimed that the Soviet threat was the glue that kept the continents together. Now that threat is gone and new challenges have risen. In what way has this relationship been influenced by the new challenges this new era stands for? By doing a case study and by using two quite different theorists, John Mearsheimer an offensive realist and Joseph Nye who is a liberal institutionalist, I?ll try to show how for example September 11, anti-amerikanism and NATO can be explained and understood.

The purpose with this essay is to analyze Adlerz writing within the context of the fiery debate in the 1880?s between the liberal so called ?cultural radical? members of the student organization called Verdandi, and the conservative, uniform oskarian culture named after the Swedish king of the period. I have applied a version of Quentin Skinner?s method, which focuses on the context of a specific writing in order to find out the authors intention, the effect the author hoped to achieve. My questions regard certain themes I discovered in the text and, more importantly, the relationship between these themes and the surrounding debate.

The purpose of this study was to examine the political party ?Feministiskt initiativ? (Fi) and their communication during the election campaign 2006. We wanted to find out what the intention was and how the communication was received by the public. We also looked for signs of congruence between those two sides.Fi is the first political party with a feministic ideology to candidate for the parliament in Sweden. The party is rather new and their political standpoints and internal affairs have often been subject of for debate in the media.We wanted to investigate people?s individual opinions of the matter, and therefore we chose to personally interview a number of people.

The purpose of this thesis was to explore how Swedish librarians working with educational matters In Swedish: studiebibliotekarier experience his/her pedagogic work in the context of a public library. My intention was thus to reach an understanding of how they experienced their educational work. The following questions were asked: 1 How do the librarians experience the physical environment created for their students? 2 How do the librarians experience the co-operation with others involved in their work? 3 How do the librarians experience the formal task that he/she now is given? 4 How do the librarians experience their own pedagogic qualifications regarding the demands that are made upon them by the students? I have interviewed six librarians and incorporated theories on pedagogic roles in an educational context. I reached the conclusion that these librarians believed the environment to be important for the outcome of the students success with their studies.

This thesis explores different ways of navigation in virtual environments. It also investigates how virtual environments can support human memory. Tests are done using a self made virtual model of Orkanen Library, Malmö högskolas school library. Among the different navigation tests that were done, a visual guidance in form of a line on the ground leading to the goal is showed superior when navigating a virtual environment but that people prefer legible landmarks instead. Tests were also done which show that a 3D-model of a real location supports context based memory.

AbstractInformation and information seeking have always been important parts of society. How behavioural patterns of information seeking manifest themselves are partly due to individual prerequisites and partly due to the practice where the seeking of information is conducted.The aim of this study is to investigate a group of newly examined physicians? experiences of information seeking behaviour in their educational practice and in their professional practice. The two practices are related to each other but still very different. This makes it interesting to study whether individuals? information seeking behaviour changes when they move from the educational practice to the professional.The theoretical framework for the current study is a socio-cultural one.

This essay is about democracy and how a democracy index can be used as a tool to illustratethe gap between reality and ideal. The purpose of this study can be expressed by two researchquestions: Does the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) democracy index illustrate thedistance between reality and the ideal of democracy presented by Dahl? and Can the EIU'sdemocracy index be modified by a) internal adjustments and b) using the variables includedin World Economic Forum?s (WEF) equality index?By using a combination of theories (Dahl?s theory of democracy, Rawls theory of justice andchosen theories critical to liberal democracy) as an analytical framework the following twoquestions have been answered:1) Which of the variables included in the EIU's democracy index have the potential to capturethe level of political equality?2) Which of the variables included in the WEF?s equality index have the potential to capturethe degree of political equality?By using a quantitative method the study?s third and last question has been answered:3) How strong is the rank correlation between the EIU?s democracy index and the WEF?sequality index, that is; how strong is the rank correlation coefficient (rho)?The data presented by the WEF?s equality index indicate that women are systematicallydiscriminated against as a group. From a democratic perspective the EIU may need tomeasure inequalities at a group level in order to capture the lack of political equality betweenindividuals. By reformulating some of the EIU?s variables, by revising the EIU?s point systemand by using the variables included in the WEF's equality index to extend EIU?s democracyindex, the chances of capturing the gap between reality and the ideal of democracy presentedby Dahl would likely increase..

According to old european tradition the ideal national state has a unified people, but in reality practically all states has one of several minorities that to a smaller or greater degree differs from the majority. One such minority that have been present in many countries and managed to avoid becoming completly assimilated are the jewish people. Their dream of a state of their own eventually lead to the founding of the state of Israel where they themselves are now in majority. The purpose of this report is to study how the jews historic experiances has affected the political parties in Israel, how they choose to meet the ?challenge? of their own minorities och whatever they treat different minorites differently.

Title: Diversities of diversity - fluctuating talk, meaning and practice of diversitySeminar date: 06.02.08 Course: Masters thesis in Business Administration, Programme for Managing People, Knowledge and Change, 15 University Credit Points (15 ECTS). Authors: Björt Ólafsdóttir & Clarissa Sia Choon YenAdvisors: Mats Alvesson & Susanne LundholmFive key words: Diversity, Discourses, Hypocrisy, Comparison, National contextPurpose: To identify and compare discourses around diversity within two companies operating in two distinct national contexts. One originated from and still situated in Iceland, while the other is a subsidiary for Asia-Pacific market in Singapore with American values from its headquarters in United States. We wish to explore what are the meanings and implications of diversity for the employees of each company, how their discourses on diversity reflect hypocrisy in the organizations and if and how national context has an impact on discourse on diversity.Methodology: Interviews were conducted, transcribed and codified. Comparison and evaluation of the different discourses were examined around diversity and in the talk of interviewees within the two companies.

Denna B-uppsats behandlar huruvida Polen som medlem av europeiska unionen har stort eller litet inflytande. Vi har genomfört en fallstudie på Polen som är uppdelad i två sektioner. Den första sektionen behandlar Polens potentiella inflytande i EU, där vi har mätt olika indikatorer för att få fram variabler som påvisar inflytande. Indikatorerna baserar vi på en teoretisk diskussion om makt, där vi utgår från olika tänkare inom samhällsvetenskapen. I den andra sektionen har vi studerat Polens reella inflytande genom att se vilka krav Polen ställt inom den gemensamma jordbrukspolicyn (CAP) samt i vilken utsträckning man fått igenom dessa krav.Nyckelord: Polen, EU, makt, inflytande, CAP.

This two years master's thesis in Library and Information science, examines how the implementation of new technical equipment can affect how staff in public libraries organize their work and activities in the library. One Swedish public library in specific is the subject of research in this thesis, which has been anonymized as Kvarntuna city library. The study takes place in the beginning of the implementation of RFID-technology in the library. RFID, which stands for Radio Frequency Identification, is supposed to make the handling with different types of media in the library more efficient and in connection with the implementation one wants to reorganize work and activities in the library to make it even more efficient and also create a modern library.The thesis' method is qualitative interviews with six members of the staff. The theoretical framework of the thesis is a sociocultural perspective, especially inspiered by Roger Säljö, a Swedish professor in pedagogical psychology.

AbstractPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to examine to which extant the politically governed organization, Swedish association of local authorities and local regions (SALAR), has been mediatized. Furthermore the purpose was to examine how SALAR being a Meta-organization affected the mediatization process. To accomplish this the thesis studied how SALAR organized themselves internally in order to form opinion through the media in one of their prioritized issues. A further purpose was to equalize SALAR?s mediatization process with the mediatization process for the whole political system. Method: This is a qualitative study which the gathered material has been collected through two types of methods, semi structured interviews and field observations.Material: A total of eight interviews were made distributed over three departments inside SALAR.

The Catalan movement of Independence is a well debated subject in Spanish news for the last decade. This thesis aims to examine what kind of identityarguments that spanish versus catalan newspapers make about the independence movement, in relation to nationalism and national identity. This is to deeper the understanding about the current complex situation in the Iberian Peninsula. The research shows that identityarguments about the independence movement presented by catalonian newspapers clearly put focus on identifying the ethnic and cultural reasons for the growing nationalism in the region, as well as discussing the political possibilities and obstacles of a sovereign Catalonia. In comparison, the identityarguments presented by spanish newspapers has another view of the situation, where the political aspect of the nationalistic catalan movement, identify the process as defying the Spanish Constitution and challenging the traditional historic unity of Spain.

Detta arbete rör sig inom det organisationsteoretiska området. Ämnet som behandlas är kontrollspann och vad som påverkar och påverkas av detta. Vi har funnit att det finns en stor mängd olika faktorer som kan sägas påverka hur en organisation väljer eller bör välja att strukturera sig. I uppsatsens första del har vi försökt identifiera vilka effekter olika breda kontrollspann kan tänkas ha för en verksamhet samt vilka rekommendationer som finns i den existerande forskningen kring kontrollspann.I andra delen av uppsatsen undersöker vi Lunds universitetssjukhus akutmottagning, där man nyligen (2006) genomfört en omorganisation som bla innebar avsmalnande av första linjens chefers kontrollspann. Vi har funnit att många av de effekter som man kunnat förvänta sig inte har inträffat i vårt exempelfall..

Lately information- and communication technology (ICT) has been seen as an important tool to vitalize democracy. What kind of democracy it generates is however debateable. The objective with this thesis is therefore to examine what democratic ideal that dominates the use of ICT in Region Skåne and Västra Götalandsregionen and what kind of citizenship it brings. The two case studies were chosen because the Swedish regional level is facing a reorganization with democratic ambitions which in relation to ICT is fairly unexplored. To fulfil the objective there are two perspectives; e-democracy and e-administration, which are defined and integrated with democratic theory including Premfors´ "Fast, Strong and Thin" democratic ideals and Marshall´s three citizenship rights.