The Swedish Prime Minister, Tage Erlander, made a speech on the 22 of August 1961 in which he dismissed speculation that Sweden was seeking to abandon its neutral stance and non-alignment in foreign policy with a view to requesting membership of the European Economic Community. The reason was that the EEC was supposed to have a political part where a connection with NATO should have existed. This speech led to a domestic discussion which has been called the most intense debate of foreign affairs in recent history. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the reactions of the other parliamentary parties to Erlander?s speech.

This thesis title starting from zero alludes to storstadssatsningen's democratic work being accomplished among immigrants in Malmö. My thesis examines which types of political participation storstadssatsningen were trying to increase. The goal was to turn the immigrants into political participants, but in many of the projects the democratic work had to focus on building a ground for democratic participation by bringing isolation to an end and teaching the Swedish language. This may have been the reason that there were not extensive forms of resources to put into projects actually raising the political awareness. Some of the projects can however be said to increase a very large number of types of political participation, both temporary and every day participation.

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.

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.

The aim of my study is to illuminate the borders, both spatial and aspatial, that are drawn around Europe in swedish politics by using the word in question in different ways. To increase my possibilites of comparing different concepts of Europe, I have chosen to restrict my study toFolkpartiet and Vänsterpartiet, which are the two swedish parties who seem to stand the furthest from each other on issues regarding Europe and the EU. Using theory on borders and bordering, I construct an analytical framework consisting of a separation of three categories of entities, around which borders can be drawn. In my search for both obvious and implicit ways of filling the word Europe with content, I find that both parties speak of Europe in a highly contradictory way, which both includes and excludes peripheral regions of a geographical Europe. My second conclusion is that both parties tend to associate Europe with things that are positive to them.

AbstractTitle: Similar but different ? Sweden Democrats and Swedish Social Democratic Party in Swedish newspapers online during 2010 (Lika men olika ? Sverigedemokraterna och Socialdemokraterna i svensk rikspress på nätet 2010).Number of pages: 35 (40 including enclosures)Author: Magnus MjöhagenTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication studies CPeriod: Autumn 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/aim: To discover any possible difference between the media report concerning The Sweden Democrats and the Swedish Social Democratic Party in Swedish news press.Material/method: A quantitative content analysis has been made with 64 articles from the homepages of the four biggest news papers in Sweden: Aftonbladet.se, Expressen.se, DN.se (Dagens Nyheter) and SvD.se (Svenska Dagbladet). The analysis focused on four themes: 1) framing in the articles, 2) impersonation in the articles, 3) the democratic task of journalism and 4) the expectations of journalism in an election campaign.Main results: The main results showed that the difference between the two parties either was nonexistent or very small. The articles were sometimes framed in specific ways, but a big amount of the articles were not framed. Impersonation occurred in about half of the cases, concerning both parties.

One aim of this thesis has been to trace the driving forces among active members of the Swedish Pensioners? Interest Party (SPI), but also to render how party values and ideas are connected to the concepts of is-sue space, distrust, and New Party Politics (mainly populism). Since there are several pensioners? parties in other countries, my second aim has been to investigate whether the party is a result of a diffusion proc-ess of copying a successful equivalent party; in other words to find out whether a master frame has inspired the forming of a Swedish pension-ers? party. Through interviews and document analysis, I have found seven issue dimensions explaining the motives behind my respondents? engagement in the party.

Partly as a reaction to a perceived crisis in contemporary democracy, the nineties witnessed an upsurge in different forms of citizens? fora, dedicated to the promotion of increased participation by the citizen in the political process. Youth councils are a special point in case as they entail the general characteristics of a deliberative forum, with an emphasis on political learning. This study aims to undertake an evaluation of a regional youth council in the region of Skåne in the south of Sweden. Through qualitative analysis, the study aims to portray the origin, purposes and consequences of such a forum.

The purpose with this study is to investigate how the two biggest Political parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderate/Conservative Party, looks at a membership in the defense alliance North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The question have the illegal annexation of Crimea affected how the parties look at a membership in Nato will be answered and analyzed. How they discuss, how they believe that a membership can affect the Swedish foreign policy will be examined in this paper. Nato is a topic that during the last century?s have divided the Swedish population into two groups: one that advocates a membership and one that fight?s against a Swedish membership in the alliance. The debate about Nato has, since the illegal annexation of the Crimea, changed and are now more relevant than ever to discuss.

In 2002 the local council of Lund, Sweden, decides to implement the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. A number of actors, such as the state, the civil society, the political society and the bureaucracy, participate in the political process with different authority and points of departure. This thesis studies the actors´ interactions from an inside perspective by applying concepts such as political power, democracy and implementation. The methodological departure is action research from within, a local NGO, the local board of Save the Children Sweden. The results of the study indicate that governance and steering of the implementation process at the communal level is weak.

AbstractSince the 2006 election the country of Sweden is governed by four Liberal and Conservative parties. Parties that by cooperating maintain power in office and forms a so called coalition. A coalition that not only can be seen at the national but also at the local level. According to pervious research coalitions that holds control of the seats in the government at the national level tends to increase the total expenditures compared to other types of government formations. Can a similar connection be seen at the local level? This the fundamental issue of this essay.

In this examination project I look into what ways upper secondary school students conceive themselves as politically influenced before they voted for the general election of 2010. The purpose is to examine which influences the upper secondary school surroundings and the classes of civic education are contributing with to students before they voted. As a method, I have used personal, semi-structural interviews on eight upper secondary school students who all voted for a party represented in the parliament. I have asked questions about how they believe their parents, the surroundings of their school and the classes of civic education have influenced them. To separate which influences primarily the upper secondary school and the classes of civic educations have had on the students, I have selected two comparison groups of four students in each.

In a suburb of Stockholm, local polititians descide to close down an elemantary school. Because of its shortage of pupils, the polititians claim they can not guarantee the quality of the school and the public requreiments of equal education. The school-employed teachers and parents of the pupils are all unhapy with the descision, but first and foremost dissatisfaied with how the descision was communicated.Using qualitative methods; interviews and content analisys, this thesis aimes to determine how the involved parties, in regards to the termination of the school, view the concepts of freedom of choice, equal education and quality. Interviews have been made with decision-makers, employees of the school, the school leader, one civil servant and parents; all with the goal of understanding how the involved parties view the events leading to the termination of the school and what causes they see. Furthermore, the thesis analyses if and why the involved parties experience the decision as legitimate..

The EU Services Directive has caused an intense debate across Europe. Its purpose is to remove obstacles to trade and to open up the public sector to increased competition. The Swedish labour movement has been deeply involved in the policy process, and union leaders have proclaimed the compromise reached in the European Parliament in April 2006 as a success.In the paper two major aspects have been considered: the meaning of the Swedish model and the process of Europeanization. The Swedish model previously allowed for a strong labour movement, through a social democratic hegemony, but the EU membership has implied new conditions for union influence. The paper examines how this change has affected the strategic choices of the Swedish labour movement, and how it has been manifested in the union's work with the Services Directive.

Sweden's government says in the bill 2008/09: 140 that military service should be suspended and replaced with a system based on voluntary recruitment. In the essay, I will make an argument analysis of the parliamentary debate on the bill from the 12th of June 2009 with the following questions: On what is the different side?s argument based on? Are the arguments essentially and factually substantiated? Is there a clear political party tendency among the for-/counter arguments? The method is a "Pro et contra" analysis, a logical systematization of the arguments. The analysis will take start in the headline; Conscription should be suspended in favour of a voluntary system based on contract employed soldiers. The presentation of arguments in the analysis will be guided by the chronological order.