AbstractIn November 2011 the Swedish Government announced that they were conducting an investigation to examine what impact the conversion of existing rental stock to condominiums could have on the development of the Million programme areas. The proposal of converting rental stocks to condominiums aims to help people living in these neighbourhoods to private ownership, while still allowing people who want to continue to rent their homes to do that. This thesis intends to investigate the effects of the proposed reform from a management perspective. The maintenance of the areas built during the Million Programme gets more neglected every year that passes. The majority of the housing stock is rental properties and extensive renovation of the surface layer, tribes and public spaces are essential in all Million programme areas studied. By transforming a portion of the housing stock into condominiums and by improve the living environment through renovations, these areas would be able to gets more attractive.

Mervärdesskatten på restaurang- och cateringtjänster sänktes från 25 procent till 12 procent den 1 januari 2012. Sänkningen var en del i den sittande regeringens övergripande mål om en högre varaktig sysselsättning.De flesta utvärderingar på sänkt mervärdesskatt har fokuserat på effekter i konsumentpriser. De utvärderingar som genomförts pekar alla på att övervältringen i konsumentpris har varit relativt låg, varför mervärdesskattesänkningar sällan verkar komma konsumenten till godo.En sänkt mervärdesskat, som inte resulterar i ett fullt prisgenomslag på konsumentpriser, skapar ett ekonomiskt utrymme för de företag som blir träffade av reformen. Det utrymme som skapas har företagen full dispositionsrätt över, varför en utvärdering på endast konsumentpris är allt för begränsad och riskerar att inte fullständigt fånga reformens effekter. Denna utvärdering utökas till att omfatta effekter på sysselsättning, omsättning, produktionskostnader och investeringar.Då den här typen av reform är svårutvärderad i sin natur, på grund av bristen på kontrafaktiska utfall, tar studien fasta på att det finns gränsregioner i Sverige som är utsatta för internationell konkurrens, vilket gör det möjligt att förhålla sig till effekter utöver ett före- efterperspektiv.

This essay focuses on the implementation of the strategy gender mainstreaming in the European Union and the member states. It starts to identify problems connected to the implementation process and recognizes significant prerequisites for an efficient implementation of the strategy. The main problems and prerequisites are: political will, governance and structure and knowledge about gender equality. The empirical material consists of reports from the EU that touches upon gender mainstreaming and gender equality. The problems and prerequisites will be analysed in relation to the governance perspectives top-down and bottom-up and expert bureaucratic and participative democratic and gender and feminism.

Slovenia and Latvia are two examples of countries which have gone through a successful democratic transition. They were both under authoritarian rule and command economy up until their declarations of independence in the early 90s. Today they have a functional market economy and political pluralism. I have examined transition theories highlighted by Jonas Linde and Joakim Ekman and from these theories sought the explanations to what lies behind the successful transitions of these two countries. The transition in Slovenia was affected by liberalization from within the ruling communist party which then controlled much of the transition process. A relatively large civil society and the fact that Slovenia was not involved in the Balkan War also contributed to the short process.

The current trend towards globalisation and democratisation has made the theories of politics in pluralistic societies, and how to make them work, of particular interest and concern. Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy is an important influence in this field. At the same time the importance of civil society in transition studies and democratisation processes has been reinforced over the last thirty years. However, the complex political situation that plural societies face, creates obstacles for a healthy civil society. This thesis is based on a case study of Lebanon, a country with deep ethnic divisions and a government that resembles a consociational democracy.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the existence ofpersonalization within Swedish political parties along withhow the parties work with this phenomena in order to achievemore voters.The method used is personal interviews with politiciansfrom four different government parties. As a complement, interviews with a political expert was also made. All parties use personalization in different ways as a strategy tocreate dialogues and relationships with both media and voters. We distinguished two sorts of personalization: individualization and privatization, and discovered that not all parties use both..

abstractThe aim of this essay is to try to convince the reader that relativism and postmodernism (the latter implying the former, but not the other way around) can be reasonable methods for the social sciences, rather than the irresponsible play of ?extremes? theories of this kind sometimes are made out to be.The intention is to do this by way of the later Wittgenstein, the philosophy of whom is the foundation for what is termed relativism and postmodernism in this essay (definitions of a kind that are here claimed to be missing from the discourse of the social sciences). The essay also contains an empirical presentation/analysis, displaying the Wittgensteinian theory through an aspect of the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and -60s..

By using contemorary work-theory this thesis aim to show how Yarden. En bera?ttelse, puts into play the circumstances of precarian work, circumstances that have gender political as well as identity political overtones. It tries to show how the idea of ?class-jouney? is used as a conciliatory element.

The municipality of Falkenberg is a result of a unification of several smaller municipalities in 1971, each one with a small library. This left Falkenberg with an unusual large amount of smaller branch libraries. The object of this thesis is to describe and try to understand the political conflicts that have erupted during the period 1971-1994. Through a case study containing press clippings from the local newspaper, different reports, political meeting protocols, a historical background of the library and a study of library specific norms and regulations I can create an image of the heated debate. The participants in this debate can be divided into politicians and civil servants and the conflict circles round the fact that from an economical perspective, there is not enough budget to keep all the small, local libraries.

ABSTRACTBachelor essay in political science by Hanna Richter, spring 2006Supervisor: Mats LindbergTitle: A study of the phenomenon of micronationsThe purpose of this essay is to study the phenomenon of ?micronations?, to describe it to the reader and to discuss why this phenomenon is interesting to study in the field of political science. The questions this essay seeks to answer are:- What are micronations, and which variations are to be found within the phenomenon?- Why are micronations interesting to study in the field of political science?Bary Buzans theory of the nature of the state works as a frame of reference to this investigation of micro ?state-like? units. The phenomenon of micronations has not been investigated by the social sciences in any extent worth mentioning yet.

This thesis analyses the 2005 UK presidency of the Council, and more particularly the negotiations on the future financing of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to discuss whether the holding of the presidency implies political influence for the member state. To analyse the power of the country holding the chair the thesis focuses on the presidency functions of brokering and leadership. The theory suggests that the influence of the presidency is derived from informational and procedural power resources, as well as some leadership resources, such as coercion and reward. A case study was used to analyse whether these power resources were used by the British presidency.

The theory of deliberative democracy believes in collective decision-making to achieve an expanded legitimacy and rationality in the political process. It is argued that those good public dialogues best take places in public spheres between citizens, where the common interest is carefully thought about. This thesis was done with the assumption that theatre can strengthen the idea of the public sphere and create a meeting place in the civil society, where a good public dialogue can appear. To create a good public dialogue you need citizens that are corresponding and participatory. Citizens who participate in the political process develop an increased knowledge about the society and the more knowledge about the society the larger reason to participate.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze and examine India's economic reforms which the country introduced on the government's own initiative in the early 1990s after decades of practicing isolationism. The analysis entails a thorough systematic examination of possible factors that determined the decision to implement the reforms. These factors are derived from two models developed by scholars within the field of foreign policy.The research is performed through an examination where the possible factors for the reforms have been examined on a three-level basis; system-, state- and individual level. It is a qualitative case study that seeks to explain not only why the Indian government implemented the reforms but also to evaluate the validity of the models to the extent that they stand in accordance with the case of India.The conclusion presented in this thesis is that one model works better for explaining the case of India. The model lie emphasis on structural changes, a crisis and political entrepreneurs committed to a certain type of reforms as a prerequisite for policy change to take place.

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on a present trend of professionalization in Swedish local environmental politics, which have recently seen a decline in active participation of the citizens in favor of an increased governmental regulation. With the aim to closer investigate this relatively new phenomenon, the paper is a qualitative single case-study of environmental policies in the Swedish municipality of Karlskrona. In this case, the municipality is obviously balancing between regarding the interests of the national level and the interests of its own citizens at the same time. This motivates the use of system-theory, and relates to the classical political paradox between participation and efficiency which is also a present theme in the paper.This text-analysis based on interviews with personnel and documents from the municipality shows a visible trend of professionalization in the local politics of the municipality of Karlskrona, from a large grade of participation and a strong bottom-up approach in the days of Agenda 21 to now being more strongly top-down defined by national environmental objectives and principally operated on a professional level..

The focus of this essay is on a political party that was founded in Sweden in 1904. Today, we known it as Moderata Samlingspartiet. Historically, this party has transitioned through multiple phases which have included a change of name and also a change of substance in the area of trade policy. The party that was cheering globalisation at the 2006 congress had its roots in protectionism and had been founded as a strict protectionist organisation. The question raised here is what has caused this dramatic change in the trade politic?In addressing this important question, I have used both organization and party strategy theories to identify the main underlying reasons.