AbstractParticiapation from the citizens in a democratic society is one of the ground pilars for the function of the democratic society. The goal for the Swedish contemporary democracy is to complement the representative democracy with different kinds of participatory activities for the citizens. But is it working? The purpose of this essay is to exame the problems that might occur when the citizens participate in a wider extent than just voting. The focus is problems connected to the democratic value political equality.

A group of scientist, called the council of democracy in Sweden made a predictionabout members of political parties, in 2013 members should not exist. In this essaythat statement going to be questioned. It shows that most of the political parties losesmembers in Sweden. The only differences from year 2000 and now is that in 14 yearsthe parties has lost 65000 members, between 1991-1999 it was about 220000members. Something has changed.

A group of scientist, called the council of democracy in Sweden made a predictionabout members of political parties, in 2013 members should not exist. In this essaythat statement going to be questioned. It shows that most of the political parties losesmembers in Sweden. The only differences from year 2000 and now is that in 14 yearsthe parties has lost 65000 members, between 1991-1999 it was about 220000members. Something has changed.

AbstractCities are once again becoming the locus of economic, social and political processes. The effect of these processes on the city is two-fold: one one hand they threaten to fragment and dislocate the city and the actors within them, on the other hand they give actors within cities new opportunities to react and mobilize resources towards different strategies of integration. The latter gives rise to what Patrick Le Galès calls the collective actor-city. The aim of this thesis is to explore the notion of the city as a collective actor in a swedish context by utilizing Le Galès theory of european cities as collective actors in an abductive case study on the city of Malmoe. By utilizing Le Galès five dimensions that make up a collective actor I analyze interviews conducted with city officals aswell as documents produced from the city wide plan of action Welfare for everybody.

For many years, sugar beets have been the most profitable crop for farmers with suitable growing prerequisites. During year 2007 when the grain prices increased and the EU reform decreased the payment for sugarbeets, it was no longer obvious to grow sugar beets in the crop sequence. With the latest agricultural reform in mind, farming has turned to a more open market and that is important for the independent farmer to adjust to the prevailing market presumptions. In the theory, scientists distinguish between unique and repetitive decisions. Unique decisions can be described as decisions made ones or not often. The opposite, repetitive decisions are decisons that have been made several times before.

The purpose of this thesis has been to explore the topic of business simulation from a theoretical foundation in social constructivism and theories concerning leadership as the management of meaning. The most important findings are that business simulation can be used for strategical leadership by management to create a common vision in the organisation members, which affects their perception of the business and the decisions and actions they make, which in turn can lead to a more efficient organisation that becomes better at meeting set goals. This can be viewed in different ways from different theoretical viewpoints: as inducing targeted changes in mental models to create changes in decision making and actions; as a secondary socialization process where the vision of management is externalized as a business simulation that is in turn internalized by the organisation members that participate in the business simulation, or as a way to frame and define the reality of the organisational members which creates a shared reference point against which a feeling of organisation and direction can emerge. In the future, business simulations may become increasingly used by organizations to create a common vision or to communicate a new decision to the organization members..

The aim of this thesis is to spread some light over the coming into being of the 2005 Pension Reform in Norway. The point of departure lies within an interest in Welfare State politics and the development in this field. Pensions constitute a cornerstone in the Welfare State. Making use of J. Kingdon´s Theory of the Agenda Setting Process, Discourse Theory and Institutional Theory the thesis seek to visualize the implications of structures, central actors and discourses on the reform processes.

The purpose of this study is to describe the motivations of women to participate in politics and to examine whether women feel that they are held back by something in their political participation. The questions of this study are:How do women motivate their participation in different fields in politics?Are there any obstacles that are holding women back in their political participation? Interviews have been used as the method to gather the empirical data. When applying the theoretical framework on the empirical material the main conclusion is that women tend to participate more frequently in political activities that are less time consuming and more sporadic in comparison to more traditional forms of political participation. Women are also more inclined to participate in political activities on a lower level that makes up part of their everyday life, one example of this is women?s increasing participating in political consumerism. Keywords: Politiskt deltagande, kvinnor, motivation, politik, politisk jämlikhet, politiska sfärer.

This study is case study of political participation among the Kani tribe from Kuttichal grama panchayat in the Thiruvananthapuram district in Kerala, India. The study is based on the collected data of 117 people of the Kani tribe living in four different settlements: Pankavu, Mangode-Valippara, Chonampara and Kaithode. The aim of the study is to examine the impact on political participation by different factors, which is done by the use of the quantitative method of cross tables. The study confirms previous studies in its conclusion that high status individuals, defined in terms of education and economic standard, are the group of the highest political participation, when this is defined as being involved in political work and holding a party membership. On the local political scene however, where political participation consists of participation in local assemblies and voluntary work, the impact of the examined variables are very limited.

This paper investigates whether there is a right not to suffer from poverty. The investigation is being conducted from the theoretical standpoint/view that only civil and political rights constitute justiciable rights and rights proper from a moral stance, whereas economic and social rights constitute mere political agendas or less.In the search of an answer to this question the content of economic and social rights, and thereafter civil and political rights will be outlined, followed by an inquiry of what should really be considered as rights. Finally, the arguments against economic and social rights as real rights is presented and scrutinized.This paper will conclude that the stated difference between the above-mentioned sets of rights is illusory and that the right not to suffer from poverty ought to have the same status as civil and political rights..

Background: The growth of the venture capital industry has given birth to new relations between investors and entrepreneurial firms. Venture capital firms are by definition investors serving as an active partner which implies a deeper relation between investors and entrepreneurs than has been the case previously. This new situation leads to a number of questions. Do venture capitalists really act as active partners with a long term interest in the venture? Do they add any value besides capital? How important is their influence in the portfolio company's decision making process? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to give a deeper understanding of the relation between venture capital firms and IT companies in the start-up phase.

The European Union is seen as democratic, and one of the criteria for a democratic decision process is that it must be fully transparent for the citizens. That is the only way for them to make their own decisions about political issues, and it is only possible as long as the citizens have access to relevant and reliable information. However, this is not always the case within the European Union, since it is often difficult to get a hold of different documents of the institutions, and since the civil servants to a great extent are forbidden to give away any information..

This study aims at examining the prospects for a policy transfer of a Swedish municipal environmental policy (that of Växjö) to the French urban commune Blois, for which an ambition of becoming a leading eco-city in France, was declared by the mayor in 2008.In the analysis, emphasis is laid on mechanisms to institutionalize the main environmental policy principles, such as political and institutional structures and processes. Other prospects for an institutionalization of a new environmental policy that are to be investigated are economic structures as well as visions of the different decision-makers concerned. Research methods used in the study are qualitative interviews, document studies and a questionnaire.The findings of the analysis show that today?s prospects for an environmental policy in Blois close to that of Växjö, are clearly limited. The limitations can partly be found in economic structures but these seem to be rather related to a lack of priority amongst actors.

Since the end of the Cold War, foreign aid donors have been using political conditionality to promote human rights, democracy and good governance in recipient countries. This phenomenon has been analyzed and criticized, but mainly from a strictly empirical point of view. In this paper, the legitimacy of political conditionality is analyzed through a normative perspective based on the extrinsic value of efficiency. If the political conditions don?t result in a democratic development, including respect of human rights and good governance, they can not be justified.With at theoretical focus on the donors, based on the unequal relationship between donor and recipient, I am examining the donors? possibility and supposed will to use political conditions in development cooperation.

This thesis uses statistical methods to investigate if political appointees working for the Swedish government are good representatives for the members of the ruling party. This is a relevant question since the number of political appointees and the political fields in which they are employed have increased. Some say that this is a sign of presidentialism, which in this context means that the prime minister and his cabinet are becoming more independent from parliament and supporting party. The research is done by comparing the political appointees with an select elite of party members regards to socioeconomic background, which interest that are promoted in society and ideology. The consequences of differences on these characteristics between political appointees and the party elite could be that some interest in society are wrongly overrepresented while others are wrongly underrepresented by the unelected political appointees.