The primary purpose of this thesis is to study how political agents construct and give meaning to the concepts of democracy, representative democracy and referendums. The starting point of the thesis is the pressing issue whether or not Sweden should hold a referendum on the new EU constitution. To analyze this question my choice of method is critical discourse analysis and the topical theories revolve around democracy and responsibility.My study shows that there are three different discourses in this debate: ?the democratic process?, ?the representative democracy? and ?the concept of democracy?. However, the meaning of the concepts in these discourses varies depending on which side the political agents are on.

Ever since its conceptual birth, the questioning of consequences due to the implementation of ideas from the reformation doctrine, called New Public Management, has been a common occurance among those who have dedicated themselves to research in superior methods of Public Administration. What this thesis aims to do is shed light upon what value-conflicts may occur within public administration organisations when they begin to idealize the rationalization of economic issues. The goal of this thesis will be fulfilled through the creation of two ideal types of public administration that exist in opposition to each other. These two ideal types will show two different views on how decision-making and organisation will be managed in their respective sectors. By doing this, there will be clarification as to what conflicting values arise with the implementation of ideas taken from New Public Management, as well as defining the fundamental difference between which ethical decision model is used..

The Swedish Library Classification System, known as the SAB-system, can be viewed as a product of the cultural and social norms and values in Sweden during the time in which it was created and subsequently reviewed. The main purpose of this master?s thesis is to examine the archaeology section J in the SAB-system, in order to observe if values and norms within this discipline had any impact on the Swedish Library classification system. Our intention is therefore to verify any correspondence between the choice of topics and hierarchical structure of that section, and the values and norms that ruled the Swedish society during the 20th century at large but with particular emphasis to the academic discipline of Archaeology. At the present, Archaeology is often disputed as a value-free interpretive science.

AbstractEssay in political science, C-level, by Julia Leonsson, spring semester 2007Tutor: Susan MartonFreedom ? The political philosophy of our time?An analysis of the ideas of the international debate aboutChávez socialistic politicSince more than 2000 years there has been an ongoing discussion about whether state interference is a good thing or not. Most international organisations on the international political arena are today founded on neoliberal values, and it has developed in to the hegemonic ideology of the world. The socialistic politics of the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez is thereby a somewhat unusual strategy. The purpose of this essay is to examine to what extent the international debate about Chávez socialistic politic can be understood through a neoliberal perspective.

I denna uppsats så tar vi upp frågan om individuell lönesättning för domare. Detta blev nyligen implementerat för Sveriges domare på initiativ av Domstolsverket. Frågan blev en konflikt då domarna ansåg att det var ett hot mot deras självständighet i den dömande verksamheten då individuell lönesättning skulle kunna vara ett verktyg för styrning. Vi har intervjuat domare och Domstolsverket och vi har gjort en argumentationsanalys av det som skrivits om frågan och jämfört parternas argumentation. Vi har även belyst frågan genom att använda Lennart Lundquists teori om demokratins väktare samt ett ramverk utvecklat av Björn Johnson om policyöversättning.

Regimen i Iran är i denna stund utsatt för stor press från USA och EU3 som vill få regimen att avbryta dess kärnteknikprogram. USA hävdar tillsammans med de europeiska stormakterna att det iranska kärnteknikprogrammet inte har fredliga syften, istället menar de att det används som kamouflage för att utveckla kärnvapen. Iran menar att påståendena är osanna och att landet är i behov av kärnenergi i takt med att deras befolkning snabbt expanderar. Syftet med vår uppsats är att bringa klarhet kring problematiken. Därför fokuserar vi på att undersöka Irans motiv för respektive emot ett anskaffande av kärnvapen.

År 1980 startade Iran-Irak kriget som pågick i åtta år. Kriget utspelade sig mellan två starka makter i Mellanöstern. Jag har undersökt varför kriget kunde pågå så länge och koncentrerat mig på medlingens roll i att avsluta en konflikt.Under arbetet har jag diskuterat tre anledningar till varför medlingsförsöken i Iran-Irak kriget misslyckades. FN:s svaga handlingar, de konservativa mullornas utnyttjande av kriget och slutligen supermakternas ingripande i kriget är de orsaker jag funnit som svar. För att analysera konflikten och komma fram till mitt resultat har jag använt mig av teorier om medling.Resultatet i arbetet kan användas för att ge en inblick och förklaring till dagsläget i Iran och Irak och Mellanöstern i stort.

The purposes of this thesis is study the European Court of Justice from a non legal perspective and investigate the courts possibility to advance its own preferred goals rather that of the member states in cases of non-compliance. Drawing on general principal-agent theory I construct a model from which I derive certain hypothesis mainly about under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be more sensitive to member states preferences and under what circumstances we should expect the Court to be less sensitive. These hypotheses are then tested empirically against all cases of non-compliance initiated by the European Commission against member states between 1953-2000. The results from the study are rather positive. The most important result is that when the threat of sanctions against the Court increases so does the Courts sensitiveness to member states preferences and when it decreases so does the Courts sensitiveness..

The Sweden Democrats achieved great progress in the latest election in the Swedish municipals. The party is now closer than ever concerning reaching the Swedish parliament. This thesis examines the Sweden Democrats in the Swedish municipals with the aim to find out which municipal factors that led to their progress. By looking at the percentage share of unemployment, the percentage share of foreigners, the percentage share of education, average income, traditional political colour, average age, criminality, early representation of a party hostile to foreigners, the municipal type and the sickliness in the municipals I find out which factors explain the progress of the Sweden Democrats. The thesis is an empirical quantitative study build on statistics by the help of regression analysis and diagrams.

Industries with energy costs as a large proportion of their total costs are greatly affected by the instruments deployed to cope with the Swedish climate and energy policy goals. With energy costs representing more than 30 % of the total costs, tomato cultivators are one of the affected industries. In order to remain competitive with other countries, a more resource- and cost-efficient cultivation of tomatoes in greenhouses is desirable in Sweden. Based on the concept of industrial symbiosis, this study investigates the prerequisites for a resource-efficient production of locally grown tomatoes in Sweden through the utilization of low grade industrial waste heat. The study is based on the foundry industry as the supplier of waste heat.To investigate the environmental, technical and economic potential of the exchange of waste heat, a comparative life cycle assessment, an inventory of the supply of industrial waste heat in Sweden, a compilation of potential technologies for the recovery of low grade industrial waste heat for heating greenhouses and a comparative life-cycle cost calculation were carried out.

This essay captures the process toward a democratic transition in South Africa and tempts on analyzing the efforts made by civil society before the negotiation with the government in the beginning of the 90´s. The method used is a case study.By applying the theory of Elisabeth Jean Wood about the importance of continued mobilization, I try to answer the question: to what extend did civil society influence the democratization process. The focus of the study lies on the years of intensified popular mobilization, from the start of the 80´s until the beginning of the 90´s.The results following this study shows that COSATU, Congress of South African Trade Unions) and ANC(African National Congress) played both a crucial role for the democratization process in South Africa. UDF, however played a role in the process, but not in the same significant way that COSATU and ANC..

The question is who should govern and administrate a municipality owned urban forest? Should societies and the public be invited to participatory planning, who are the interested parties, could they be treated like a group and what are their opinions on administration and management? The study is carried out in a municipal owned forest Vitberget Skellefteå that is widely used by associations and individuals for recreation and training.This has led to several discussions in the local media about the management of the forest, especially in connection to harvesting. The work undertaken here has been to identify who has any interest in the management of the area. After identifying the interested parties, a selection of the societies, schools and pre-schools that actively uses the area as well as random individuals met in the area was interviewed. The questions asked can be divided into six main groups:? Communication with the municipality?s managers for the area? Interference from other activities? Views on forest management? Views on nature conservation? The uniqueness of Vitberget? Development opportunitiesThe crucial factors identified as being needed to succeed in managing an urban forest are long-term administration, information and communication.

I denna uppsats undersöker vi huruvida en av de mest lästa tidningarna i Sverige, Metro, påverkas av sitt avtal med SL och hur det tar sig uttryck i tidningens innehåll. Att dagspress påverkas av andrahandsaktörer är ett stort demokratiskt problem, eftersom media har en central roll för agendasättningen i samhället. Denna roll blir allt större när Sverige strävar efter att öka de deltagar- och samtalsdemokratiska inslagen i samhället.Empirin består av Metro och DN:s rapportering kring SL i mikrofilmsformat under tre perioder. Genom kvalitativ textanalys söker vi skillnader hur SL framställs i respektive tidning.Vi anser att det finns element som tyder på viss påverkan på Metros framställning av SL. Man finner bland annat positiva vinklingar av SL:s roll i olika processer..

Since the early 1940s in Sweden, subsidies have been a recurring feature in housing politics.Throughout history, these have been used as a management measure to control theconstruction of housing and to promote the Swedish welfare state. The Political parties aretoday disagreeing on how much responsibility the state should carry for citizens housing. Tosolve the conflict, the dwelling has to be defined. Is the dwelling to be considered a socialright, like education and healthcare or is the dwelling to be considered a product for the freemarket, driven by supply and demand?The positive population growth in Stockholm has lead to an increased demand for dwellings.The supply of dwellings has not been growing at the same rate, which has implied higherhousing prices and longer wait for rented apartments.

Utifrån ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv och med en diskursanalytisk metodologi skärskådas Folkpartiet Liberalernas integrationspolitik. Denna politik bör förstås som en strategi att hantera ett ?utanförskap?. Samhällsforskaren Ruth Levitas har i sina studier av brittiska New Labour beskrivit tre diskurser som hon menar dominerar eller har dominerat partiets syn på ?utanförskapet?.