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.

The purpose of this study is to examine secondary teachers' perceptions of conflict, conflict management, conflict prevention and conflict communication. In addition to theory, I conducted individual interviews and focus group discussions. Most teachers have a common view and argues that a conflict occurs when two or more individuals do not agree on something. Typical conflicts are about grades, teachers' changing professional roles and cellphones in the classroom. In my view, it seems as if the mobile phone has taken over the core conflict that caps created for some 10 years ago, functioning now as the dominant symbol in an ongoing development process providing space for meeting and dealing with conflicts in a constructive way..

AbstractDet övergripande syftet med uppsatsen är att förstå varför det förekommit problem med färdtjänsten i Lund sedan seklets början. Vi undersöker dels vad det innebär att styra färdtjänsten med kontrakt och dels beställarkompetensen hos tekniska förvaltningen i Lund. Våra resultat visar på att styrformen i sig inte behöver orsaka problem, men att det troligen spelar in i detta fall eftersom förvaltningen inte haft tillräcklig beställarkompetens för att minska vissa transaktionskostnader av kontraktsstyrningen. Det finns även vissa indikationer på att utvecklingen av förtroende mellan aktörerna missgynnats av turbulensen under de första åren på seklet. Förvaltningen rekommenderas utveckla en mer omfattande beställandekompetens genom systematiska utvärderingar..

The main purpose of this thesis is to investigate four children?s librarians? literature view and their collaboration with pre-schools. My main question at issue is ?What literature view do children?s librarians in this thesis have and how does this reflect their collaboration with pre-schools??. Another purpose is to study the canon process in relation to children?s libraries and pre-schools.

This thesis examines the relationship between OECD-DAC and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) within an aid efficiency context. The ability for these two actors to cooperate is highly important and determines the outcome for a major part of the development aid in the new millennium. The development agenda for the new millennium emphasizes aid efficiency as a key to a more successful aid, and this requires increased cooperation between all actors. The analysis made is a discourse analysis. The discourse of aid efficiency is analyzed, both its preconditions and results.The analyze finds out that there is a gap between OECD-DAC and CSOs in terms of how to handle aid efficiency.

The concept of sustainable development is a challenge that demands cooperation from all levels of society for it to be successful. The focus for this thesis is how politicians within the local councils understand the concept of sustainable development and how they implement it in political decision-making.The basis for the study is a questionnaire that was distributed to 303 local politicians in three municipalities of varying size in Southern Sweden. The study concentrates on departments within the local councils that are directly connected to the Swedish environmental law and the Swedish planning and construction law. One of the primary goals with the aforementioned laws is the achievement of sustainable development within one generation.The outcome of the study was that over half of the local politicians could correctly define sustainable development according to the World Commission on Environment and Development?s (WCED) definition.

This thesis examines the Swedish labour market with a focus on the immigrant part off the population. There are big differences between the immigrant and particular non-European immigrant part off the population and native Swedes. In the first part off this thesis I will show that immigrants in Sweden have a higher rate of unemployment, lower rate off employment, lower wage incomes, higher risk off unemployment and are overrepresented in low skilled, low status jobs. Even when controlling for different factors such as education level, knowledge in the Swedish language, age etc. a big gap remains.

The purpose with the essay was to study the school and the social welfare personnel respectively along with their perspectives and views on their collaboration in the work with socially exposed children and how the collaboration was formed.To get answers to my questions, I interviewed three teachers and three social welfare secretaries. The questions and the analysis were divided into themes: the collaboration between school and social services now and in the future, development of collaboration, and facilitation and difficulties.When analysing the interviews I found a consensus in some questions. All interviewed agreed on the importance of collaboration for the welfare of the child through continuous meetings. The relationship and dialogue between school and social services was vital. Both teachers and social welfare secretaries found it essential not to be seen as a hidden authority.

This thesis is seeking to explain why policy change come about. This is done by applying a part of Karin Lindgrens dissertation Vad styr ledaren?. The research evolves around the term pressure and the hypothesis are that policy change come about when there is middle range pressure on the decision-maker. Low and high pressure results in no or small policy change.The thesis is done as a case study where the economic crisis in Thailand 1996-1999 makes my case.

In Sweden prostitution is by many considered to be a social problem that primarily affects women. To counteract prostitution is a political priority and as a result the purchase of sexual services is prohibited by law. Since the law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services entered into force it has been continuously debated and widely disputed. The aim of this thesis is to compare the image of prostitution found in the travaux préparatoires of the law with four sex workers? view of the phenomenon.

This thesis is an analysis of articles published in the Palestinian newspaper al-Quds concerning the escalated conflicts within the Fatah movement during the summer in 2004.The study is done on the basis of the assumption that The Palestinian Authority (PA) expects the domestic media institutions to support the official objectives and, in this case most important, the national unity. My investigation reveals that the articles are indeed highly adjusted and purposed to unify and to hinder further growing instability, both in the politicalsphere and in the streets. The message urging for unification under the PA is constantly, directly and indirectly, repeated throughout the articles by the choice of themes and references as well as by the choice of individuals and organisations delivering statements..

The purpose of this bachelor thesis was to illuminate and analyze the working conditions of visual artists in the Swedish region of Värmland. As a profession which is known to have many problems concerning income and the fact that most artist are unable to get by on their art sales alone it becomes interesting to look closer on cultural policy?s affecting the artists, where the problems lie and what possible help they can get.I have used previous research and different sources to map out the working conditions in Sweden and Värmland alike and also interviewed five different visual artists in Värmland to get a general view of the working conditions in the country as a whole and their perception of the situation and special circumstances in Värmland. I have also used discourse analysis to compare the source material with the answers of my respondents to see which discourses that exists, that have hegemony, and to see how this subject is talked about.The results of this study showed how political decisions may force artists to become self-employed entrepreneurs even though many artists do not self-identify as such or even have any interest in profitable gain. The study also shows among other things that most artists have another occupation on the side but that there are some aids to help the artists with income.

Our thesis is a single-case study in which we try to answer the question: Why didn?t the lobbygroup Eurogroup for Animals get enough support for their demands in the latest regulation regarding transport of animals? As an example of their cooperation with their memberorganisations, we have chosen the Swedish organisation Djurens Rätt. Through interviews with key-persons involved in the process and with the use of Jeremy Richardson's theory regarding lobbying in the EU, we found that there were many different factors that effected Eurogroup for Animals chances to get an animal friendly legislation. For example by setting too ambitious demands Eurogroup for Animals wasn?t considered to be a serious actor during the legislation process.

Sedan 2002 har kommuner runt om i landet infört medborgarförslag med syfte att öka delaktigheten och dialogen mellan medborgarna och kommunen. Detta är ett projekt som prövar att införa deltagardemokratiska inslag inom ramen för den representativa demokratin.Uppsatsen bygger på en jämförelse vi gjort mellan Lund och Kristianstad kommun med avseende på hur väl dessa lyckats med införandet av medborgarförslag och vad som detta resulterat i. Materialet som vi använt oss av är framförallt de medborgarförslag som inkommit till de båda kommunerna men även intervjuer och relaterad litteratur. Vår slutsats är att det i båda kommunerna finns ett grundläggande problem när det gäller sammansättningen av de som deltar men även att kommunerna lyckats olika väl när det gäller uppslutningen och informationen kring medborgarförslag..

The purpose of this paper is to explore branch librarians? ideals for mediating fiction and their view on the literature that are distributed by the Swedish Arts council. The study is based on the following questions: How do branch librarians reflect about mediating fiction? How do they express their view and their work with literature that are distributed by the Swedish Arts council? And which ideals of mediating can be distinguished from these expressions? To answer these questions a qualitative examination based on interviews with four branch librarians where used. The empiric material where then analysed by Jofrid Karner Smidt?s theory about different ideals for mediating fiction.