The purpose of this thesis is to historically describe how Fédération Internationale deFootball Association (FIFA) interprets how the discourse of anti-racism has developed withintheir own organization throughout the years. In doing so, the thesis lands in a present timeperspective and then aims to identify the norms which FIFA, according to the organizationitself, stands for in regard to anti-racism within world football. That standard of behavior isthen put in contrast with the hidden ideological conceptions which, with the applying of apost-colonial perspective, can be found in the rhetoric used by FIFA in expressing themselvesabout their anti-racism stand.The methodology used in this thesis builds upon a qualitative text analysis approach inwhich solely primary sources available through the official website fifa.com are considered.The study finds that anti-racism is a relatively young concept within FIFA and that the communicatedideal standard of behavior circles around terms such as unity, diversity, solidarityand equality. Further on, FIFA clearly articulates how the universal power of football as suchcan unite people and that FIFA, as the administrator of this the world?s greatest sport, can setan example for the rest of the world to follow when it comes to notions of tolerance and solidarityin preventing racism in the future.In following the terminology provided by the post-colonial theorists Homi Bhabha andGyatri Spivak, and applying the concepts of fixity and essentialism on the rhetoric aroundanti-racism, the study discovers that FIFA, in sharp contrast to the articulated norms, in factexpress ideological conceptions of skin as a barrier of difference between people, and thatFIFA on good grounds can be accused of reproducing racist stereotypes rather than bridgingthem.The study concludes that its findings clearly demonstrates the increased need of consideringsports, and more specifically international sport organizations, as a basis for researchwithin the academic field of International Relations, and that a postcolonial perspective verymuch can provide alternative understandings of how these actors operate and what influencethey might have in the international system..

Undersökningens syfte är att studera hur historielärare på gymnasiet berättar om berättande. Studien grundar sig därför på intervjuer med gymnasielärare i historia. Intervjumaterialet kopplas sedan för det första till retoriska begrepp, för det andra till Thomas Ziehes pedagogiska teorier och för det tredje till Peter Gärdenfors bild av människan som mönsterskapare och meningssökare. Resultatet av undersökningen visar på att lärarna i sin undervisning använder retoriska grepp av olika slag. När de berättar om vad de gör, beskriver de det emellertid inte med retoriska termer..

Mass media is becoming more and more personalized and despite common ideas it could actually be a good thing. Instead of affecting the actual content of news coverage it might only have an effect on the way in which news are presented. Famous politicians more regularly become symbols and synonyms for their parties or for the government and are being used to create interest in the beginning of articles.Those are the results from a content analysis of the newspaper coverage of the Swedish parliamentary election in 1976 and 2006 in which the scientist categorized each article in one of four ideal types, counted quotes and analyzed whether personal names were interchangeable with party names without affecting the content. All three methods showing that it is the presentation, not the content, which has been personalized.At the same time, psychology-science tells us about the human brains associative learning processes, where memorizing becomes far more efficient when the information can be connected to an already known person. Increased personalization of news might therefore increase the political knowledge of the receivers..

In the world after the Cold War, internal and ethnic conflicts have been predominant. Ethnic conflicts have their own theories on why they erupt and what can be done to solve them. This essay seeks to analyze how the Ethnic Security Dilemma can explain the causes, and possible solutions, of today´s armed ethnic conflicts.By making an ideal types typology over different types of ethnic conflicts, and then analyzing the Ethnic Security Dilemma´s impact on each conflict type.

After the 9/11 attack the United States declared war against terrorism, which launched a conflict between indefinable transnational networks and states. In this war it became clear that the strategies used in traditional wars between states were not sufficient. New strategies have been discussed, but without any concrete results.In this thesis assassinations of terrorist leaders ordered by states is being presented as a possible strategy in the war against terrorism. Assassinations have been used in all times to shift political power but is today not morally accepted. This thesis aims to show that when used under the premisses of the just war theory, the strategy can be equally morally justified as any traditional war.

The findings in this case study are mainly based on material collected during a field trip with a fellow student to Laos in February-March 2005, which was sponsored by Sida through a Minor Field Study scholarship. The original interest was to study a political aid project (Governance and Administrative Reform Project Luang Prabang, GPAR LP) in a country like Laos with very complex preconditions such as one-party polity. In Laos my interest in evaluation of political aid grew mainly because I found out that the two donors in the project, Sida and the UNDP, had reached different conclusions in their respective evaluations of the project.The main interest in this thesis has been to study how donors have evaluated a political aid project. The study shows that Sida and UNDP used, what in the literature usually is referred to as, Conventional evaluation as methodology when they conducted their evaluations of GPAR LP. The study also shows that the main reason for the different points of view that are expressed in the evaluations depend on a lack of dialogue and consensus, regarding for the project crucial concepts, rather than choice of evaluation methodology.

Modern democracies rest on a foundation of values essential to their prosperity. Two of those values are freedom of speech and political equality. To many, these values appear to coexist effortlessly. However, what this thesis aims to expose are some of the problems that quickly arise when attempts to interpret the values fail.The thesis investigates a specific US Supreme Court ruling called Citizens United. The ruling enabled corporations and unions to use their own treasuries for unlimited independent political expenditures.

The idea that I put forward in this thesis concerns the democratic system and the threat from discoursive impact on its core values. I focus my normative analysis on three of these democratic values: transparency, accountability and influence ? and what democratic problems the discoursive impact causes in conflict with them. I have used a critical discourse theory to define discourse and discoursive impact, by focusing on the process of discourse, rather than its nature. I deal with the political structure where I claim that the essential relation between citizen and politician is disrupted, due to lack of information and the imminent problems of the existing network society.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate why the two Swedish municipalities of Frykerud and Östmark were the only municipalities in Värmland that were forcibly merged by the state during the ?Municipality block reform? of 1971, and whether local identities played a role in the resistance against this reform.     The study is designed as a comparative case study and builds on both history and political science to analyze the topic from a broader perspective. Based on the research situation three theoretical theses have been formulated, the durability of which will be tested in the analysis part of the essay.    The study notes that Frykeruds resistance against the ?Municipality block reform? started when the reform prevented a planned retirement home construction in the municipality. In the analytical part of the essay, the author discusses how the discontent can be interpreted as symptomatic of bourgeois centralization resistance, as well as being due to the fact that traditional, local self-government as a political subject was perceived as threatened.

This is a case study on the functioning of political parties and the aim was to explain ?how? and ?why? the Swedish social democratic party changed their policies in the Middle East politics. I wanted to explain this process of change by using Angelo Panebianco?s framework for the analysis of political parties. Angelo Panebianco´s hypothesis is that all parties must be viewed as organizations to understand their functions.

This master thesis is about one of the first female in the Swedish Parliament, Elisabeth Tamm (1880?1958), and her political articles in the magazine Tidevarvet. The aim of this study is to find similarities with Tamm?s political thoughts with the Ecofeministic theory. Due to women?s right to vote 1919 women citizenship was in a political debate.

This study is an assignment from the council of Södra Småland county to investigate how equality between boys and girls progresses at compulsory schools in Kronoberg county. The study was undertaken to find suggestions on how work with equality could best be stimulated.The key question was to elaborate how a decentralized rule and structural context of an organisation can affect an implementation of political decisions. The methodological approach adopted can be defined as inductive, it was analysed how the respondents from some selected schools in Kronoberg county themselves relate to the concept of equality between men and women and their experience and understanding of how the concept of equality between sex is understood in their work at school.School-legislation today demands that active measures are undertaken to promote equality between boys and girls and in general almost all the respondents of my study describe equality as an utterly important question. My findings although, at the same time, indicate a gap between rhetoric and practice. The findings of my study suggest that structural relations and a decentralised organisation can constitute a hindrance for implementing equality between men and women in schools.

The centre of attention in this essay is on public-private-partnerships in Swedish city planning. It discusses the phenomenon and tries to identify the problems and possibilities that may appear when private and public actors are trying to work together to plan new cities or parts of cities in a process with network structures. The main questions that is asked is ?what vision for the city can we se, and who's vision is it?? together with the question of where the actual power to make the city plan and the vision can be find. The soon-to-be-built area Ulriksdal in Stockholm were Peab AB and Solna Stad stands as main actors has been chosen to illustrate the possible problems and is analysed from different angles, but the writers intention is also to say something on the matter in general.

There is a clear difference between types of regions and forms of regionalization. This theoretical division can point out other division lines on different areas and levels, like the one of discourses. In this article is urged that regional political discourses may be divided in West and East European ones. To argue for West and East differences in regional discourse the article shows division lines both in the history of regionalization but also in ideologies. The regional policy of the EU is one example for today's regionalization as a West discourse and the Transylvanian in Rumania as an example for the East discourse.

AbstractEssay in political Science (c-level) by Karin Forsling, Spring 2007A school for the best interest of the child? - The Swedish School System according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.Supervisor: Stig MontinThe purpose of this essay is to investigate how the Swedish governments work with the im-plementation of this convention and what progress has been made. The inquiry of this study is to describe how the changing in the Swedish School System correspond to the national strat-egy for implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Sweden and how the political protagonists.I have read some of the most relevant documents from the authorities and organisations work-ing with children?s rights in Sweden and papers and communications from the political pro-tagonists.Since UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Sweden in 1990 the work for implementation has been quite successful but there are still lots to do. There are still some problems in School such as bullying, insulting, insecurity and lack of peaceful and harmoni-ous school environment.