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.

Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the ERK model's relevance, validity and potential need of development to better reflect how it looks today (2013). Method: The study is conducted through three surveys; the first two were face interviews with companies that sponsor Swedish soccer teams and the third study was conducted with a questionnaire to supporters outside a soccer stadium. Results: A model that would better reflect the reality of today (2013) could contain company pride, chairman?s whim, exposure, relationships and associations..

The political landscape is constantly changing and influenced by outside forces. The strong connection to the traditional media has evolved to include a new important part, social media. A good way for the politics to utilize social media is through their youth associations, whose main purpose is to engage young people and spark their interest in politics. Due to the increasing influence of social media, the politicians, parties and various actors have to adapt to its demands, to be able to gain visibility on these platforms. One way to adapt is to become more entertainment driven, because these platforms are a safespace where people find time to relax and have a good time. With a growing emphasis on simplified, engaging and more fun political massages, political communication has changed its form. This phenomenon is referred to as ?politainment? and encapsulates the merging of politics and entertainment. The purpose of this study is to examine and measure the frequency of politainment in Swedish political youth associations political communications.

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..

With the expansion onto the international market almost a decade ago, Swedish energy corporation Vattenfall began it's breaking and burning of coal on German soil. Criticism aimed at Vattenfall peaked in the mid 2000s with the revelation of large quantities of carbon dioxide emissions and the re-location of villages and graveyards in German states Brandenburg and Saxony. The purpose of this thesis is to show where the responsibility for these activities lie. By analyzing the history of, and the political debate surrounding, Vattenfall, I will show that the prevailing policies of right- as well as left-wing parties in the 20th century were all, regarding this matter, market oriented. I will also show that these market promoting policies made possible a situation where the transparancy of, and state control over, Vattenfall were close to eliminated.

The Swedish Moderate party has openly referred to themselves as a liberal-conservative party. This definition, however, leads to a possible ambiguity where the extent to which the party is conservative, and liberal is up for debate. Furthermore, this might allow for extensive changes within the party, while still using the same ideological mantra. This study employs a longitudinal ideological analysis of five official party documents published between 1984 and 2022 to analyse how the party has drifted between the two ideologies over the years. The analysis is done using three political areas: immigration, economy, and safety.

The aim of this thesis is to study the cause of Egypt´s failed development of the transition to democracy and vice versa, the reason why Turkey succeeded in democratic transition. Thesis methodology is a comparative analysis between design units Egypt and Turkey. Thus, the most similar design used in the investigation.European Commission began in 1998 to review Turkey´s political and economic reforms to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria. 2005 began negotiations on a Turkish- EU membership. U.S and Egypt have enjoyed close economic, security and democratic cooperation since 1975.

I denna empiriska undersökning analyserar vi argumenten som framkom i diskussionen före och under Natos intervention i Förbundsrepubliken Jugoslavien 1999. Som en bakgrund till vår analys beskriver vi det folkrättsliga regelverket samt två teoriskolor och deras syn på staten, internationella relationer och humanitär intervention. Vi genomför därefter en argumentationsanalys enligt Naess pro et contra-modell, där vi kategoriserar argumenten och bedömer deras beviskraft. Vid bedömningen av argumenten drar vi paralleller till folkrätten och till de olika teoriskolorna..

This thesis compares different justifications of human rights with the philosophy of Axel Hägerström. Hägerström´s philosophy uses a strict logic and discards the notion of the existence of absolute values and moral right and wrong. The justifications that are examined are those of Robert Nozick, Alan Gewirth and the postmodern view. Nozick emanates from arguments of natural law, which is rejected by Hägerström as metaphysics. Gewirths logical justification emanates in part from moral arguments and hence differentiates from Hägerström, but it can be used for constructing a practical application of Hägerström's philosophy and thereby motivate a legislation relating to human rights.

The aim of this study was to examine how the political party Sweden Democrats is represented in two Swedish newspapers. The study included a national newspaper and a local newspaper, Aftonbladet and Blekinge Läns Tidning. We studied 35 articles from both papers, from 2005 and from 2009. We analyzed the texts using the linguist Norman Faircloughs (1995) method for discourse analysis. Based on his theories, we created our own model to examine the texts. Our model primarily focused on representation. The study was conducted at a time when Sweden Democrats was given much support in opinion polls and knocked on the door to the Swedish Parliament. The study showed that Sweden Democrats in both newspapers, primarily by descriptions, the choice of interviewees, etc., often are represented as racists.

The aim of this report was to investigate which factors determine municipal taxes in Sweden.The aim was also to find out whether and how the forms of political rule are significant covariates. A multiple regression analysis was performed using data from 289 municipalities. The analysis resulted in five dierent models, of which a model based on municipal grouping was found to be most satisfactory. In all of the models, there are effects from the form of political rule. The results indicate that socialist municipalities have higher tax rates than non-socialist.

Today Europe is faced with an identity crisis concerning its borders. Turkey stands at the threshold for an EU-membership while the EU-Commission is trying to formulate what constitutes a European identity. This identity seeking process will determine the future not only for Turkey, but also for immigrants now living in Europe.In this thesis a discourse analysis, underpinned by socialconstructionist theory, is conducted to explore how the European identity has been constructed throughout history up until today. A starting point is that identity always is defined through a dialectical relationship to "otherness". Therefore the analysis is focused not only on what a European identity consists of but also what and who it excludes.