Aims: The aim of this study is to describe how youth?s political exclusion is constructed as asocial problem. This is done through a study of a project which aim is to engage young peoplein politics.Method and theory: By interviewing the project?s manager and developer as well as eightparticipating young people different constructions of the problem of youth political exclusionhas been analyzed using the social constructionist perspective on social problems.Findings: The dominant perspective found in the empirical material includes framing youngpeople?s lack of political knowledge and self-confidence as the reason for their politicalexclusion. Even though the Youth Board (ungdomsstyrelsen) in Sweden officially views allyoung people as a resource, when youth politics are implemented through projects, this is notthe view that young people meet.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the constructions of sexuality, which are produced when judgments concerning asylum are made, based on an asylum seeker?s sexual orientation. The question formulations are the following: Which constructions of sexuality are produced when necessary condition, fear of persecution due to sexual orientation, is applied in judgments regarding refugee status? Furthermore, how constructions of sexuality differ in the judgments where the asylum seeker has been consented and rejected is investigated. The empirical material consists of 13 judgments, which were announced between the years 2009-2013 by the Migration court.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to analyze the relation between the discursive formation and the optical formation in the public library-apparatus. An ongoing individualization process in the library field and in society at large is used as a backdrop in the analysis. Discourse analysis is used as a method to explore the main Swedish library periodicals Biblioteksbladet, Bibliotek i Samhälle and DIK-forum. All issues from the years 1999 and 2009 have been used as material. The main analytical instruments applied in the analysis of this material are Michel Foucault's terms dispositive, apparatus and diagram.

The concept of the work-first principle (arbetslinjen) might be considered old, but still serves as the main principle as well as an instrument in the Swedish labour market and social policy today. The original idea was that work and willingness to work was to be rewarded, especially due to a common opposition against the passive receipt of grants. The general definition of work, today, is that it is something desirable that should be achieved and that unemployed primarily will be offered training or work rather than grants and subsidies. When the Moderate party re-launched themselves as Sweden's "workers' party of today", in the beginning of the 2000's, the concept was brought back into the spotlight. In the elections of 2006 and 2010, the labour market was widely debated and become a controversial issue, with the concept of the work-first principle playing a major role.The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and problematize how the concept was presented and explained in the nationwide newspapers Aftonbladet and Svenska Dagbladet during the 2010 elections, this in order to increase the understanding of the concept?s contemporary definition and policy implications.

The aim of this paper is to illuminate and discuss the political and ideological aspects of Early Medieval Nordic music. Due to shortage of sources, this issue has been overlooked until now. Did Early Medieval Nordic music meet the requirements for political and ideological use? In what ways could music potentially be used politically and ideologically? Was music used as a political and ideological tool? This is examined by a contextual analysis combining music history and historical archaeology. The survey consists of a background account, focusing on the potential of music and some requests for political use, and three case studies, where musical reflections of societal tensions is investigated in folk music lyrics, Icelandic sagas and church art.

In contemporary Sweden political participation among foreign-born Swedes is viewed as low and it is well known that foreign-born individuals do not use their voting rights to the same extent as the general population. At the same time there are numerous ethnic associations around the country who work with various activities involving political, democratic and integration issues. This study aims to study how four members of a Somali association regard, relate to and work with politics, democracy and integration. The study is based on these four people, but also on their relationship with authorities and other agencies in the community. The conclusion of this study shows in brief that the desire to participate politically is great, but that democracy and politics is accessible to all, depending on the level of language skills and what political knowledge the individual has.

The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the field ofinformation politics, in the areas of the future regulationof The Fundamental Law on Freedom of Expression andThe Freedom of the Press Act. The focus of the study is todiscursively examine how ideas and perspectives ontechnological developments are expressed in a pendingSwedish legislative proposal. The empirical data consistsof an interim government report, SOU 2010:68, writtenby Yttrandefrihetskommittén (Committee on Freedom ofExpression) and analysed using Norman Fairclough'sCritical Discourse Analysis. The analysis is conducted onthree levels: a textual level, a discursive practice level anda social practice level.On the textual level we found that the committeecontinously uses significantly charged expressions todescribe technological development. On the discursivepractice level two discourses were identified.

Political realism is a general theory within political science focusing on the principle interest defined as power. The theory?s mutual standpoint is that states are inspired by power politics meaning that military and economic power or security stands in the centre while moral and ethics are placed in the periphery. This essay?s purpose is to analyze realism which helps to understand the development and change of the perspective.

The main purpose of this Master´s thesis, is to describe and discuss what constitutes the library collaboration between The Swedish Royal Library and the National Library of Guatemala, but also to analyse which effects the support has for public library work in Guatemala. The data consists of interviews and direct-observations during 2 months of fieldwork in Guatemala, Central America. The analysis is based on literature studies combined with the answers from the respondents and other results from the field work. We have found above all three factors to be of importance in the constitution of the collaboration between the National Library in Guatemala and the Swedish Royal Library: the Swedish library discourse, the Swedish aid discourse and the relationship between the people involved with the project. The library discourse in Sweden and in Guatemala emphasizes different aspects of the work.

Sustainable development is a concept that has been interpreted in a multitude of ways in different contexts. This essay argues that the discourse of "ecological modernization" has strongly influenced the way in which the concept of ?sustainability? has been constructed in Swedish environmental policy. This interpretation of the concept of sustainability offers the possibility of combining economic growth with ecological sustainability which stands in contrast to the assumptions of Deep Ecology and Green Theory. The aim of this essay is to explore how the concept of sustainability is being formulated in environmental policy both on a national level and in the city of Malmö.Considering these issues in a specific context, this essay focuses on city planning that is as an important instrument to promote urban sustainability both on national and local levels.

Central African Republic has partly been portrayed in the media as a forgotten crisis, but also as something that is completely natural for how it is in Africa. The society has perceptions about Africa, which has been reproduced and reconstructed in the selected articles. The discourses in particular have appeared in articles are discourses about: us and them, the confidence in experts, social representations especially (emotional roots), ideological inequities and power relations between different parties..

Today many separated children and youth up to 18 years - children in the sense of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - flee from war and armed conflicts around the world. Many of them come to Sweden for protection and to apply for asylum.The aim of this study is to examine how the national Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå - TT - constructs the image of separated children and youth. The main research questions have been: How does TT construct the image of the separated refugee children? The more detailed questions put to examine this main question have been: what are the issues being focused in the reporting and what discourses, voices and sources are let into the journalistic material?The theoretical perspective should be considered as social constructionistic where the basic idea is that the image of the separated child also constructs the way society looks upon them, their rights and their needs, affecting how these children will be welcomed and treated when thay arrive in our society. The empirical study is a qualitative analysis of text, produced in the span 2007- April 20th 2010.

This paper addresses the role of homework within the home and school environments using a qualitatively approach inspired by discourse analysis method and theory. The paper considers three newspaper articles to identify current attitudes and understanding regarding homework?s role. The paper?s structure brings results and analysis together allowing the discussion to be continuously extended and deepened.

The aim of this study has been to, through a couple of chosen theories, examine in what way and for what purposes Japan has used its international aid system, How can the nation have been said to have implemented and acted in lines with the philosophies and principles set forth in the ODA declaration. What approaches, concerning positive and negative aid sanctions in the matters of aid to Cambodia and Burma, have been chosen and what have the motives for these choices been. What have been the determining factors of the outcome related to these sanctions - economic, political and/or matters of identity? I have found that a concern for possible decrease in economic profit and investment related areas, combined with a feared loss of political prestige and worsened diplomatic relations to the neighbouring countries in the Asian society, have come to overtrump the notion of advocating democracy, human rights, environmental and anti-militaristic issues..

The present essay concerns the Levinasian understanding of responsibility in relation to the two spheres that Levinas introduces in his second major work Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, namely the Saying and the Said. The essay investigates some of the different meanings that the concept responsibility takes on in regard to these two spheres, and thus also in regard to the separation between the ethical and the political that is apparent in the book. Is it possible to find a politically uttered responsibility in Levinas Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence?The essay wants to emphasize the continuous transition between the ethical or the Saying and the political or the Said, and vice versa, with the purpose of showing how the two spheres may be conceived simultaneously. By posing the relationship between the two as a reciprocal rather than a oppositional one, the essay aims to suggest that an understanding of responsibility at once must be ethical and political.