With a background in the 17th century?s English political events, but also the ideological scene of that time, the purpose of this essay is to analyze two concepts, freedom and happiness, in Thomas Hobbes?s political writings. Hobbes is well known for his political works, mostly for Leviathan, where his thoughts about government and religion are exposed. But what does he say about freedom? And what about happiness? The study shows that Hobbes?s political thought is quite original from this aspect too.

As of 2013, around 51 million people were living on the run, classified as refugees. One of the reasons the number has increased so much during the last years can be explained by the war in Syria. The aim of following study is to evaluate the impact the Syrian refugee flow has had on the Turkish society up until today, seeing the consequences of economic, political and social impact made on the Turkish society. Due to these chosen aspects the study will be concentrated only on the changes in the Turkish society brought about accordance with economic, political and social effects. What is desirable is to achieve greater understanding of the positive and negative aspects of refugee flows on host countries.

We live in a society that has changed rapidly in recent years. The Swedish welfare state identity consisted of structures that had been formed from an emancipatory project. Today, these structures seem to have been erased and replaced by a different form of society. When a society is changing it affects the political, social and economic levels.In this social change Social Democracy seems to have lost its hegemonic position in society and describes itself as standing in a crisis. An effort to modernize the party has therefore begun.

The disciplinary role of madness in the European society was major during the17th century rise of the national state.By studying the view on madness in Swedish governmental investigations duringthe modern years of the Swedish psychiatry, 1950 to today, it's possible to seehow madness function in society have changed. The study is based on a discourseanalysis and done in three important aspects of Michel Foucault's philosophy:terms of existence, control and knowledge.Based on Foucault's theories of self-discipline, exclusion mechanisms and adetailed investigation on the concept of power, the empirical survey shows howthe ?crazy? Swede changes from a disciplinary object of society into a drone toserve under the structures of capitalism. In a psychological condition previousscience has judged as animal..

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to illustrate Serbia?s democratic development on the basis of consolidate democratic perspective. Linz & Stepan´s five arenas (political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic) are required for the possibility to become a consolidate democracy. In order to fulfil the aim, I have chosen to focus on the political and civil arenas that are most central in the study of consolidate democracy.The purpose of this study is to process how far Serbia has come towards a consolidate democracy and which obstacles still remain in the transition.The questions in this study are:? What problems has Serbia faced since the democratic transition in the beginning of 1990?? What possibilities are there for Serbia to consolidate the democracy, with focus on the two key arenas of consolidation?By applying the theoretical framework to the data, I have been able to present answers and build up an analysis.

Uppsatsen behandlar frågan huruvida dagens Ungern bör kunna betraktas som en konsoliderad demokrati. Frågan utgår ifrån teorin om för att ett lyckat demokratiskt samhälle ska kunna uppnås måste fem dimensioner vara uppfyllda: ett väl fungerande och demokratiskt institutionaliserat civilsamhälle, politiskt samhälle och ekonomiskt samhälle samt en rättstat och statsbyråkrati. Uppsatsen tar tre av dessa samhälleliga arenor i beaktande samt medborgarnas och politikernas attityder och utgår i huvudsak från artiklar, böcker och tidsskrifter. För att åskådliggöra Ungerns utveckling från demokratisk transition till dagens situation har en viss historisk tillbakablick varit nödvändig för att ge perspektiv åt landets sociala, politiska och ekonomiska händelseförlopp..

Abstract: The purpose with this study is to analyse the political debate about freedom of speech in Sweden and Denmark, after the caricatures of the Islamic Prophet Mohammed that the Danish newspaper Jyllandsposten published in September 2005. For this debate four political parties have been chosen. These are: Socialdemokratiska Partiet and Moderata Samlingspartiet in Sweden and Socialdemokraterne and Venstre in Denmark.An idea analysis has been chosen as method, and dimensions as an analysing tool. The overall result of the analysis is that right- and left political parties in Sweden and Denmark are more alike, than different in their political debate about free speech. They all wish for total freedom of speech, and see that as the foundation of the democratic society.

This thesis deals with the issues of participation and influence in the multicultural society. The aim with the study is twofold, first to identify determinants improving participation and influence in this context, and second to see if the ecouragement of a strong civil society in ethnic segregated areas is a possible way forward to a multicultural democracy. This is conducted through a case study of brobyggarna in Malmo, Sweden, and how they as an integration policy is working with these questions. Six qualitative interviews have been conducted with seven persons workning as brobyggare or in close connection with them. Toghether with readings of earlier research this material is analysed through an eclectic model with theories put together in five analythic dimensions, Multicultural democracy, Social milieu, Unequal possibillities to participate and influence and Local powerstructures.

In today's society social movement are dependent on media as a channel to com-municate their political message and their discourse. Media is an arena for dis-courses but at the same time, along with Attac, one of the actors who struggle to be part of the dominant discourse of the society. This struggle is uneven due to media and the relationship is to some content hegemonic.Attac Sweden was constituted in January 2001 and got an enormous amount of attention in media. But after the riots during the Göteborg European Council in June 2001, that Attac was partly blamed for, the attention in media has faded out. This paper shows that the images of Attac in media hasn?t been favouring the movement, especially during and after the meeting in Gothenburg.

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.

In the 1920s the law against vagrancy had been unaltered since it?s introduction in 1885. During that period, Sweden had undergone great social and political transformation in the wake of industrialisation, urbanisation and democratisation. The political landscape had changed and the social sciences were organising knowledge in new ways. The public opinion realised the need for a review of the vagrant law that better corresponded to the modern times.

Groups that are often referred to as being dismissed in society in general is by some aspects also considered being so in political arenas. A recent compilation of existing research over structurally based objections of gaining power and positions within Swedish parliamentary politics highlight a lack of research considering whether sexual orientation could be such a discriminatory basis. Using a queer theoretical approach, and drawing on concepts such as heteronormativity and homophobia, the principal aim of this essay is to illuminate aspects of local parliamentary political areas where discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation become relevant. In order to do so six in-depth interviews with homosexual politicians have been conducted. Finding a queer potential in certain ideological parliamentary political environments that enable homosexual politicians to be open about their sexual orientation, it still relies upon the individual to be confident enough not to interpret the political context as homophobic and heteronormative..

AbstractGlobalisation has lead to changes on many levels of our society; -industrial, technological, and corporate to name a few. This is an ongoing process which affects the society we live in today. The process is affecting the working-conditions for everyone through the changes of the relations on the working market. The unions have enjoyed a very special role in Sweden for a long time, but that role is now affected by these changes. The relationship between state and unions is changing, and the unions? influence in politics is decreasing.

The subject this thesis will investigate concerns the matter of how political ideologies exist within public libraries with a focus on the democratic ideal. Public libraries are part of the political system and we want to show how political ideologies take their shape in public libraries and the possible consequences of this. With the help of three major political ideologies, liberalism, conservatism and socialism we investigate how the democratic ideals of these ideologies are expressed in documents that describes activities the libraries will and have performed. In order to identify these ideologies we use discourses in cultural policy as a bridge between the investigated documents and the political ideologies. As an analytical tool we have developed a model that describes the relation between text, discourse and ideology which we use in our analysis.

Essay in political science, D-level by Lisa Kringsberg, spring semester 2008.Tutor: Michele Micheletti.?Civil Society in Singapore? can it make democratization possible?The third wave of democratization and the end of the cold war has together increased the interest of the civil society as an impact on democratization. Singapore is a country which is higly-developt in both the socie-economic and economic field. Dispate this Singapore has not yet achieved to become a democratic state. The purpose of this essay is to study how the civil society can affect democracy in a country.