The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

This thesis examines the Swedish labour market with a focus on the immigrant part off the population. There are big differences between the immigrant and particular non-European immigrant part off the population and native Swedes. In the first part off this thesis I will show that immigrants in Sweden have a higher rate of unemployment, lower rate off employment, lower wage incomes, higher risk off unemployment and are overrepresented in low skilled, low status jobs. Even when controlling for different factors such as education level, knowledge in the Swedish language, age etc. a big gap remains.

This thesis is seeking to explain why policy change come about. This is done by applying a part of Karin Lindgrens dissertation Vad styr ledaren?. The research evolves around the term pressure and the hypothesis are that policy change come about when there is middle range pressure on the decision-maker. Low and high pressure results in no or small policy change.The thesis is done as a case study where the economic crisis in Thailand 1996-1999 makes my case.

This thesis is an analysis of articles published in the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds concerning the escalated conflicts within the Fatah movement during the summer in 2004.The study is done on the basis of the assumption that The Palestinian Authority (PA) expects the domestic media institutions to support the official objectives and, in this case most important, the national unity. My investigation reveals that the articles are indeed highly adjusted and purposed to unify and to hinder further growing instability, both in the politicalsphere and in the streets. The message urging for unification under the PA is constantly, directly and indirectly, repeated throughout the articles by the choice of themes and references as well as by the choice of individuals and organisations delivering statements..

We are two students named Susanne Grönlund and Anna Zaar and have jointly worked together this c-essay called "dignity and well-being according to whom? The paper is written at Högskolan dalarna in Falun.The purpose of this study was to investigate how the elderly and assistance officer describes dignity and well-being and how it is consistent with the government's bill on the national values that the National Board has developed.Our empirical study consists of four qualitative interviews, two older people dependent on community care and two assistance officers. The study's theoretical basis is Antonovsky's salutogenic approach and SOC. The survey focuses on different themes such as dignity, integrity, participation, treatment, wellbeing, security and meaningfulness which are also central themes in the Government Bill on the national values for elderly.The results show that the respondents believe that a life of dignity is difficult to define and also a subjective experience. The results also show a consistency between what the elderly, assistance officer and the national values that define dignity and well-being.

Our thesis is a single-case study in which we try to answer the question: Why didn?t the lobbygroup Eurogroup for Animals get enough support for their demands in the latest regulation regarding transport of animals? As an example of their cooperation with their memberorganisations, we have chosen the Swedish organisation Djurens Rätt. Through interviews with key-persons involved in the process and with the use of Jeremy Richardson's theory regarding lobbying in the EU, we found that there were many different factors that effected Eurogroup for Animals chances to get an animal friendly legislation. For example by setting too ambitious demands Eurogroup for Animals wasn?t considered to be a serious actor during the legislation process.

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..

The aim of this essay is to analyze the political interests of the United States Government in Turkey, from 1997 to spring 2007, using a qualitative method. I will also analyze any strategic changes during this period, by using theories of realism, particularly Structure Realism and Rational Choice. Using the Rational Actor Model (RAM), I will analyze how nation states such as the United States act in the political arena in Turkey. How can the US Government legitimize the support to Turkey and at the same time criticize there democratic deficit and their view on human rights. Turkey has been an American Military Ally, via NATO since 1952 and its demographic situation has changed since the Cold War.

Sweden is known to be one of the world?s most equal countries. Nevertheless, out  of  Sweden?s 262 listed companies, only seven  of  them  has  a  female  president, which  is  equal  to  3,4  percent. To  counteract  these  numbers  there  are  several  possibilities.  One  arrangement  that  is  highly  controversial     is  affirmative  actions.  But  there  are  other  options,  for  instance  more  and  more female  networks  are  starting  to  rise  and  many  of  them  also  offers  a  mentoring  program  where  the  mentee  gets  the  opportunity  to  learn  from  someone  with  more  experience.The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to  examine  what  difference  the  female  network  Q80,  with  focus  on  its  mentoring  program,  is  doing  for  the  mentee.  As  an  underlying  purpose  the  study  is  also  examining  what  visions  and  attitudes  the  management  and  the  mentors  is  communicating  within  Q80.  The  focus  is  mainly  on  the  visions  of  Q80,  menas  mentors  and  business  exceeding mentorship.  A  survey  has  been  carried  out  among  mentees  from  three  different  seats of mentoring  programs  where  they  have  answered  19  different  questions  regarding  their  time  as  a  mentee.  Furthermore  interviews  have  taken  place  with the management  of Q80  and  two  mentors.  The  results  are  analyzed  based  on  theories  about  gender,  women  in   management,  leadership,  mentoring  program  and  organizational structure.  The  result  shows  that  Q80i  as  a  source  of  inspiration  and  a  support  for  the  category  of  "career  women"  with  its  core  mission  to  strengthen  the  participation of  individuals  on  a  personal  level  more than  to  work  to  even  out  the  gap  in  the  Swedish  labor market.

Sedan 2002 har kommuner runt om i landet infört medborgarförslag med syfte att öka delaktigheten och dialogen mellan medborgarna och kommunen. Detta är ett projekt som prövar att införa deltagardemokratiska inslag inom ramen för den representativa demokratin.Uppsatsen bygger på en jämförelse vi gjort mellan Lund och Kristianstad kommun med avseende på hur väl dessa lyckats med införandet av medborgarförslag och vad som detta resulterat i. Materialet som vi använt oss av är framförallt de medborgarförslag som inkommit till de båda kommunerna men även intervjuer och relaterad litteratur. Vår slutsats är att det i båda kommunerna finns ett grundläggande problem när det gäller sammansättningen av de som deltar men även att kommunerna lyckats olika väl när det gäller uppslutningen och informationen kring medborgarförslag..

The fact that we apprehend certain phenomena as more convenient than others generate questions about what constitute and decide what we think of as normal and appropriate. The aim of this thesis is to explore the immense conception of power and authority through a narrower approach that focuses on the EU.With this in mind I examine the penetration of the neo-liberal ideology in the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to see if there are any implications for hegemony. This is achieved through a discourse analysis which is strengthened with empirical cases of EU policies.The result of the discourse analysis of selected parts of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe reveals that there are in fact tendencies which indicate that our society and reality is dominated by a neo-liberal hegemonic discourse. Subsequently the contemporary discourse broadly infiltrates the entire European Union, and therefore also its member states..

Genom en litteraturbaserad teorikonsumerande metod undersöks konsekvenserna av att konsociationalismen tillämpats för att nå konfliktlösning i Nordirland som om mycket realiserats genom förvaltningsstrukturen. Både konsociationalismen och förvaltningen visar sig besitta inneboende problem. Då konsociationalismen inte uppfylls till fullo kan detta komma att påverka det fortsatta samarbetet och därmed fredssituationen negativt. Förvaltningen å andra sidan kan i dagsläget inte uppnå grundläggande demokratiska principer såsom folklig medverkan. Tillräcklig uppmärksamhet har inte riktads mot vikten av en väl fungerande förvaltning, trots att denna besitter förmågan att påverka både attityder och den grundläggande motsättningen i ett konflikthärjat samhälle.

One of the most well-known trials in history is the one in Nürnberg, Germany, soon after the end of World War II. It is understandable that this caused a lot of discussions and that it was a world known trial which set the standards for a lot of similar occasions later on. The aim of this research is to focus on the opinions about this trial from a perspective of well-known Swedish newspapers. The method is to analyse three big papers with different political views and to see what separated them and what maybe united them. By studying the master-pages of the newspapers a picture is given of how the contemporary time had an understanding for the trial reports, which we in our time have established as facts.

This study aspires to find an answer to what makes a negotiation for peace successful. In our pursue to do so we have chosen two cases to compare with each other through a set of different theories. The theories we believed could be relevant were ripeness/readiness, asymmetry, the strategies of mediation, intra-state conflicts and personal actors.The case-study consists of two negotiations that both took place in Camp David. The first one was between Egypt and Israel, 1978, and serves as the example of a successful negotiation. The second case was, again, with Israel but the counterpart was Palestine and took place in year 2000.

This master project in landscape architecture is named Interactivation Design - places for social imagination and conversation in Lindängelund. There are two main purposes of this thesis the first being to bring forth a study of interactivity implemented in the subject of landscape architecture. The second purpose of this thesis is to present a proposal to design a confluent landscape weaving together the upcoming botanical garden of Lindängelund and the residential area of Almvik, both situated in southern Malmö, Sweden, and also weaves people and their experiences together. This project may be described as investigative and experimentative reaserch by design.The first part of this project, Interactivation, is consisting of a theoretical report which discusses different ways of approaching when, how and why we interact in public space. Literature studies in for example space, placemaking, social life, people, participation and Japanese emptiness concepts has been undertaken to gain knowledge in the aim to create interactive landscape design.The second part, Context and Design Proposal, introduces the project context area of Southern Fosie in Malmö which consists of different kinds of residential areas, people of different nationalities and a large building site for a botanical garden and recreational area.