Since the nineteen-fifties, the American political scientist Robert Dahl (born in 1915) has been one of the most prominent democracy theorists in the world. In the book Politics, Economics, and Welfare, he and his colleague Charles E. Lindblom in 1953 introduced the notion of polyarchy as a denomination for the incomplete democracies of the Western world. Linguistically speaking, this notion was formed in connection with the ones already existing in the philosopher Aristotle's (384-322 B.C.) comparative teachings on government. Later, it has become apparent that the notion of polyarchy has already been in use by other authors, such as Johannes Althusius (1614) and Sir Ernest Barker (1947).Robert Dahl has been active at Yale University (in New Haven, Connecticut, USA), and is regarded as one of the foremost representatives of the political-science discipline known as pluralism.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood a political force that can be able to push Egyptian society in to the process of democratization? We think that the answer to that question is yes, even though the movement clearly state that their main aim to create a democratic state, but based upon the Islamic shari?ah-laws. In this paper, we examine if the Brotherhoods? political platforms and ideas are compatible with the classic ideas of how a democratic state should be. We discuss Robert A.

The means to political participation at the local level in Sweden are changing and this change is analyzed through a case study. The first aim is to explore the forms of public political participation in Swedish municipal Älvkarleby, namely public question time in local government, citizen motions and open meetings. A part of this is also to analyze he every day contact between citizens and representatives. The second aim concerns the reasons why politicians decide to support these means to participationThe empirical material consists mainly of semi structured interviews with local politicians, civil servants, participating citizens and local press. Official documents such as public minutes are also used in the process of creating an image of local participation.Local political participation is found to be limited but yet having the potential to strengthen democracy, provided that public decision-makers are open to a dialogue with the participants.Using Kjell Arne Røvik's theories of organisational change, the changes in local democracy can be explained as being partly rational, partly symbolic and partly identity shaping political decisions..

AbstractTitle: From old rightwing-ghost to the new labour party ? The new conservatives political communication during the Swedish election 2006Authors: Pontus CarestenAim: The aim of the essay is to study how the conservative party communicated during the election campaign in 2006. I wish to find out how political parties work in todays society and how the communication has changed over time. To get relevant results I will also see how the theories and empirics interact. The purpose is further to illustrate the new conservatives? campaign work from a senders point of view.Method/Material: I have chosen a qualitative method which consists of three interviews with relevant key persons.

There are lots of theories about participatory democracy, but rather few examples of how to create it in practice. In the 1930´s, scientists at the Chicago School, implemented some projects within the Chicago Area Project, with the aim to decrease the youth delinquency in the socio disadvantaged areas surrounding Chicago. In this thesis, I assess wether these projects, and in particular the one at the Russell Square Area, have some common features with the thoughts of two of the most famous participatory democrats, Carole Pateman and Benjamin Barber. My question is if the Chicago Area Project could be seen as an experiment in participatory democracy. I find that participatory democrats could benefit from the experiences of the Chicago Area Project.

In Jan Jagers and Stefaan Walgrave theory about populism as a political communication-style they claim that one can find this in the rhetoric of political parties. In their study of Belgian politics they found that the extreme-right party Vlaams Block has embraced this populism to a larger extent than other parties. Based on this theory this thesis aims at finding populism as a communication-style in three different Swedish political parties with the purpose to see if the extreme-right party ?The Sweden Democrats? will show populism to a larger extent than other parties, as was the case in the Belgian study.Based on Jagers and Walgraves operational definition of populism as a political communication-style this thesis applies it to the rhetoric of three different parties being ?The Social Democratic Party?, ?The Moderate Party? and ?The Sweden Democrats?. This is done in order to be able to clarify on the one hand if their theory is applicable to the Swedish case and on the other hand to what extent populism as a communication-style exists in Swedish political rhetoric.The method for this thesis has been a qualitative text analysis since and leads to the result that Jagers and Walgraves theory of populism as a communication-style is applicable to the Swedish case and that ?The Sweden Democrats? to a larger extent uses this political communication style, than the two other parties..

The purpose of this essay is to study uses of history in a complementary teaching material in the subject of history. The material in question is a 170 page book titled Hitler och Stalin- En bok om ondska. In English, ?Hitler and Stalin- A book on evil?. Essential to the study is that it is expressed within the material that it might be used as the basis for a discussion of the threats against an open democratic society.

Password Management Systems är system som hjälper användaren skapa kontroll över sinaanvändarkonton och lösenord. Denna studie analyserar tre utvalda system, hur användarvänliga de är samtvilken typ av autentisering och kryptering de använder. Metoden som används är experiment tillsammansmed intervjuer av fem deltagare, varav alla hade olika erfarenheter med datorer. Studien har visat attanvändarvänligheten bland flerparten av systemen är höga. Risker finns bland upprepade lösenord ochanvändarnamn, samt osäker autentisering.

When it comes to investigating the motives behind activism, the members of political study have a lot to say. I aimed to critiqually rewiev this in my thesis. I asked the question ?What do the actor themselves claim lay behin their decision to become motivated?? To highlight this complex dilemma, I sought to discuss new social movement theory by comparing it to reality. This includes a literate examination on contemporary political science approaches, and a study of two organisations in the south of Sweden, choosen not to despise any excisting theory, but to give it a sense of reality.

The goal of this essay is to analyse how women belonging to a right wing political discourse talk about feminism and equality. This analysis will be used to determine if right wing feminism exists. The analysis is based on Laclau and Mouffe´s  discourse theory as the primary base. The focus is articulation, antagonism and hegmony; the central terms of Laclau and Moffe´s theroy. The material consists of five interviews with representatives of women wings of liberal political in Sweaden; Liberala kvinnor, Centerkvinnor and Moderatkvinnor.The study shows that there are different opinions regarding feminism in the liberal political discouse, and that those opinions have an antagonistic relationship.

For the last decades, Sweden has transformed from a state with strong elements of corporatism, to a governance of pluralistic character. This development has opened up to a new form of participation ? lobbyism ? which since has spread and commercialized. Because of this, a report on the state of Swedish democracy ? Demokratiutredningen ? was issued to examine the phenomenon of lobbyism as it was feared to challenge the functioning of a representative democracy.

This report is about the impact climate change has on the water and sewage systems in general, and the situation in the municipality of Karlstad in particular. Which vulnerabilities are linked to water and sewage systems with regard to climate change and extreme weather situations, what are the possibilities to adapt the system to this and what significance does climate adaptation of the water and sewage systems have in relation to sustainable development?To answer these questions I have studied literature on the subject and interviewed several people who work with these types of questions. The answers I have received state that there are a multitude of vulnerabilities linked to the water- and sewage systems, but that there are also many strong interests which strive to take measures and adapt to a changed climate. I have also come to the conclusion that the starting points and views of the possibilities to act differs between the people that I have interviewed, but that theses problems are built into the concept of democracy..

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze why, in the case of Afghanistan, the government chose to establish a highly centralized political system, when from a democratic standpoint a less centralized system would be preferable.The time period that is examined span from 2001 when the so-called Bonn-Accord was signed, to the parliamentary elections held in 2005, a period often referred to as the Bonn-process.The theoretical framework examines both the complex relations between federalism and democracy, as well as the relation between federalism and the role of existent ethnic minorities. The theoretical framework is then used in order to explain why it would be problematic to create a federal system in Afghanistan under the present circumstances.The conclusions that can be drawn are the following: In case of the republic Afghanistan the creation and implementation of a highly centralized political system was the only possible way for the government to be able to cope and practically deal with the problems of existent ethnic antagonism and regional warlords in order to create a stable political situation in the country..

Regionalization has become a catchphrase in European countries during the last twenty years with the establishment of the European Union. An ideational development has occurred during time towards emphasing more politicially powerful regions with the idea of new regionalism. Sweden represents a deviant case study, where regions historically have been politically weak and where Sweden has been characterized as a strong unitary state. The aim of this paper is to analyze the political debate in the Swedish parliament concerning the implementation of a stronger regional level (storregioner) during 2007-2010 and to determine if the debate can be characterized as a case of depoliticalization. The theory of depoliticalization have been introduced by Richard Katz and Peter Mair to explain why political parties through external pressure from europeanisation and globalization tend to become more consensual with similar political agendas, leading to a diminished the lef-right scale.

Agencies towards Sustainable Development ? A Study of Environmental Management Systems in Governmental Agencies 2005A vision of the Swedish government is to build an ecologically sustainable society. A tool in this effort is to implement environmental management systems (EMS). The aim of the thesis is to present in which phase of the implementation of EMS Swedish governmental agencies are. This will be done by compilation and evaluation of agencies? yearly environmental reports.The thesis is written in co-operation with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Swedish EPA).