The three post-communist states - Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine ? have gone different ways in terms of freedom and democracy since the breakdown of the Soviet Union 1991. During these years, the state and the civil society have been fundamental actors in the struggle against, and even for, authoritarianism.A strong state with great capacity in Belarus has undermined the chances for the civil society to fulfil its task as a watchdog of the state and link between the citizens and the government.Failed authoritarianism in Moldova has led to a situation where both the state and the civil society are weak. The major problem is lack of organization and cohesion; both the state and the civil society have often been divided by ethnical differences and are therefore not strong enough to promote democracy.In Ukraine, the dominance of a strong state ended in 2004 when the Orange Revolution took place, sometimes called a ?peak of democracy? where popular mobilization and protests succeeded in it's opposition against the state.

In the era of urbanization and globalization, many small, rural and post-industrialcities struggle for growth. The competition for citizens and visitors is intense, andone commonly used strategy is to promote the city to a target audience. Placemarketing, however, is homogenized to a great extent. Marketing thus seems likea useless approach, yet almost every city does it.By using discourse analysis and institutional theory, this essay aims to explainwhy the city of Kramfors markets itself. There are several problems arising due tothe marketing of places, especially concerning the discrepancy between the city?simage and identity.

According to both national and international political regulations, the school should as far as it is possible include students with special needs in regular education. However, when implementing these political intentions regarding an including school environment, problems often arise. The aim of this studie has been to investigate the opinions of teachers and students when it comes to inclusive education in mathematics. The study has partly been based on interviews with students with special needs in mathematics. These students were included in regular mathematics groups.

Ideella organisationer har traditionellt sett haft en särställning, och utgjort ett komplement till både den privata och offentliga sektorn i Sverige. Sedan mitten av 90-talet har de generella bidragen till dessa organisationer till stor del försvunnit och ersatts med utkontraktering, upphandling och konkurrensutsättning. Dessa fenomen anses vara en del av de idéströmningar som fått benämningen New Public Management och som alltmer kommit att genomsyra den offentliga förvaltningen. Vi har i vår studie fokuserat på vilka konsekvenser detta haft på den ideella sektorn och hur deras särställning påverkats.Genom en jämförande fallstudie har vi utfört samtalsintervjuer med representanter för olika organisationer som agerar inom den sociala sektorn, både privata och ideella.Vår slutsats är att kommunens inverkan har ökat och att det sker en anpassning, där privata och ideella aktörer agerar under samma förutsättningar, vilket leder till en allt mindre unik ideell sektor..

Föreliggande uppsats är en forskningsöversikt på användningsområdet för begreppet ?judikalisering?. Trots att termen används relativt ofta i samhällsdebatten finns mycket lite vetenskaplig forskning på området och en välutformad definition lyser med sin frånvaroDen gängse begreppsförklaringen fokuserar på ökad domstolsmakt och ställer principen om folksuveränitet mot rättsstatens grundsatser. Därmed blir debatten mycket ideologiskt färgad. Att det kan finnas ytterligare tänkvärda aspekter än den klassiska maktdelningsläran lämnas därhän.

This study is about youths, democracy and school. It seeks to describe and problemize the school's role in the democratic society. Firstly, using Social Representations Theory, 44 upper secondary shool pupils? representations, or conceptions, of democracy are described and discussed. These representations are then analyzed in relation to the school's role in the democratic society, as it is described by different researchers.The results show that many of the youths have a rather simplistic and abstract view of democracy, describing it only in terms of general principles and the main features of the representative democracy, such as voting in national elections.

This essay sets out to compare political participation in two e-petition systems: The Malmö initiative in Malmö, Sweden, and Better Reykjavik in Reykjavik, Iceland. The main question of the essay concerns the aggregative and deliberative qualities of the Malmö initiative and Better Reykjavik, as well as the relationship between aggregation and deliberation. This main question is divided into four subqueries that lead the empirical analysis. These are: (1) Which similarities and differences in terms of design are there between the Malmö initiative and Better Reykjavik? (2) To what extent have these systems mobilized an aggregative political participation? (3) What similarities and differences are there concerning aspects of deliberation? and (4) What is the correlation between aggregation and deliberation like in the two e-petition systems?The method in use is a comparative cross-sectional study with a 'most similar research design'.

Vi har valt att titta på hur organiseringen påverkar sociala rörelse-organisationers fortlevnad. Medlemsantalet är vår operationalisering av fortlevnaden. Våra två fall är Amnesty International och Attac.För- och nackdelar med olika organisationssätt tydliggörs med hjälp av två organisatoriska idealmodeller som till stor del är varandras motsatser. Dessa är den vertikala modellen och den horisontella modellen.Dessa för- och nackdelar har vi ställt mot empirin. Vi har använt oss av litteratur, hemsidor och intervjuer för att få en bild av hur organisationerna ser ut.Trots att Attac är nätverksbaserad och Amnesty är mer vertikalt ordnad, har båda visat prov på flexibilitet och lyckats skapa delaktighet, vilket är positivt för organisationernas fortlevnad.

By the same time as the recent enlargement of the European Union, where Poland became a member, it was officially stated that the gender mainstreaming-policy was to be integrated into every area of EU. NGO:s working as entrepreneurs for the gender mainstreaming norm in Poland supported the accession largely because they believed it would help spreading the norm also on a national level. Qualitatively analyzing the Polish case and the difficulties gender mainstreaming as a norm candidate meets with I contrast expectations with what could actually be EU:s role in this matter.Arguing that EU is a context with room for spreading norms by both bargaining and socialization, this paper takes a social constructivist approach. Gender mainstreaming as a norm is difficult for EU to apply on their members, and thus was not widely discussed during accession negotiations. In the same time.

This study focuses on international mediation and mediation theory. The aim of the study is to bring into light, a critique on already exsisting mediation theory and the need to oversimplify generalisations and results. This study focuses on a comparison between Richard Holbrooke and Carl Bildt, and their roles? as mediators during the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina 1995. I have deliberatly chosen two very different actors on the same case, to show that traditional belif on why the war ended is oversimplyfied and wrong.This study uses Curran, Sebenius and Watkins paper on mediation as a template in defining how to use the criterias for analyzing a mediator.

Although being recognized as holding great cultural-historical significance by local officials, numerous parts of the functionalistic development along Friggagatan became demolished in 2008.This bachelor thesis have surveyed how the planning process proceeded through various municipal committees, and moreover, how different interest groups gathered around certain discursive attitudes. As a consequence of various paradigm shifts in society, e.g. that local government gradually are depending on private economic initiatives, there are to some extent a fear among politicians that cultural-historical demands can risk economic growth.Nevertheless, a building or a development are in fact bearing different value-perspectives, such as economic, functional and cultural-historical. Due to the fact that the heritage-sector has limited resources, in combination with sometimes vaguely and obsolete conservation documents, the sector have difficulties of responding common economic arguments, which leads that the real estate-owner gets total interpretative prerogative.However, despite a sometimes suspicious political attitude towards an improved conservation document, e.g. with continuously updates concerning a building?s technical and economic status, there are some political initiatives working towards it..

Zambia är ett land med 71 olika folkgrupper där många olika språk talas, ändå är känslan av etnisk tillhörighet inte särskilt stark. I motsats till grannländerna där våldsamma konflikter utefter etniska skiljelinjer har varit vanligt har detta aldrig utgjort en grund för våldsam konflikt i Zambia. Inte ens de olika regimomvandlingarna, kallat de tre republikerna, som landet genomgått har haft någon större inverkan på konflikter i samhället. Vi använder oss av teorier kring varför etniska konflikter uppstår för att försöka förklara varför Zambia har varit skonade från dem. När Zambia studeras närmre inser man att det inte verkar så självklart att det ?borde? vara drabbat av etniska konflikter.

This essay examines the Swedish party Miljöpartiet de Gröna and their election campaign 2006. Focus is set on the local organisations in the region of Skåne by examining how they have carried through their campaigns as well as if they have experienced any obstacles in their campaign work. The primary research aim is to give a theoretical contribution as well as an increased knowledge of the local organisations work in the election campaign.Mainly this is a qualitative examination that revolves around the experiences of the organisation members. The material has been collected by interviews and a question survey. For analyse a concept device that correspond with campaign work- and election theory through a partly rational point of view has been constructed.

The focus in this paper was on managers in the middle position in the care of the elderly and people with disabilities. The aim was to develop knowledge about the conditions of work among managers in the middle position and what they characterized as good leadership and which strategies they used in their work. The empirical data consisted of nine qualitative interviews with managers in the middle position in the municipality of Halmstad.The frameworks that mainly limited the middle managers' discretion were laws, political regulations and most of all it was the allocated budget. Their discretion was found closer to the operation such as working methods, recruitment and changes in job schedules. The middle managers spent the majority of their working hours with personnel administrative work and that they often had to prioritise among their tasks.

The number of public schools in Sweden has increased strongly over the past twenty years. This essay gives a possible explanation to how the Social Democratic Party in Sweden took part in this evaluation from 1987 to 1997. I've analysed how the party's ideology in this issue was shaped and adapted to the opposite politics, when the Liberals and Conservatives Parties were in government.The empirical analyse is primarily based on official documents from the Parlament such as debates, government bills and motions. I have also studied the Social Democratic Party's congresses which took place during this period of time. I have practised two different theories in analysing the motives behind the acting.