In Sweden, prostitution is politically defined as a social problem, more precisely, as a form of male violence against women. The definition is distinctly manifested in the government bill Kvinnofrid, characterised by the unique Swedish law that prohibits the purchase of sexual services.This thesis examines how the Swedish solutions of prostitution are carried out. By interviewing central actors working with prostitution in different ways we aim to answer the question: What measures are taken to decrease prostitution and what implications does the Swedish solution have?The analysis is divided into two parts. First, we analyse the concrete measures taken against prostitution ? what is done, how, and why? Second, we analyse the complexity of prostitution measures by applying complementary analytical perspectives: the symbolic and the discourse perspective.The study shows that measures taken to decrease prostitution vary and depend on individual actors? understandings of the political definition.

This thesis presents a research of Swedes view on sex tourism in Thailand. This research is showing how Swedes sees sex tourism in Thailand and what kind of thoughts they have about it. This research also shows the Swedish view on sex tourism in Thailand and how it differs from the view of the Swedish media and their opinion about the subject. Furthermore, this research shows that the view of this subject differs depending on the respondents? experience of travelling in Thailand.

Japan's foreign and security policy has seen some substantial changes as a result of events like the first Gulf war and 9/11th. This has been taken as proof, by some, that Japan is abandoning its antimilitaristic stance and pursuing a more traditional hard power role through military means. This essay aims to explore if these shifts have coincided with any substantial shifts away from antimilitarism, which has had a strong influence on the country's security policy since the end of WW2.To do this I use constructivist theory, specifically regarding the impact of norms and identities on states security policy and briefly look into the problem of actor designation. The thematic focus is on security policy, from a narrow perspective, and thus I examine areas like the input and output to the Japanese military and the actual applications of this force. State identity is used to explore the prevalence of nationalistic sentiments and support for anti militarism in the public opinion and the political elite.The result of this study points to the further relevance of constructivist theory and especially the application of norms and identity.

Previous studies have shown that economic sanctions have adverse effects on the level of human rights in sanctioned countries. The focus of research on the effects in sanctioned countries has left the question of whether economic sanctions can have a regional effect on human rights levels in countries not sanctioned in the same region. Therefore, this essay has sought to investigate if economic sanctions aimed at an individual state have a regional effect on the level of human rights in countries not sanctioned within the same region. A previous study found that economic sanctions in Latin America positively affected the level of human rights in non-sanctioned countries within the same region. This essay has examined whether the same result can be found in a region with a different level of democracy.

Work has a great influence on most of individuals in society. It influences both identity as well as the structure of the day. Unemployed people are often affected in a negative way through economic and psychological problems. In order to help people with reduced work capacity back to the labour market and decrease unemployment, the Labour Market Board works with vocational rehabilitation. The aim of this study is to investigate experiences of vocational rehabilitation within the Labour Market Board among unemployed people.

The Swedish society has trough decades developed into a multicultural society. Minority groups such as Sami have been a part of the country for a long time. By being separated from the majority through culture, language etc. minorities demand the right to become independent and have the ability to practice their culture. History show that minorities all over the world have been discriminated and abused by the majorities. Democratic procedures are often advantages for the majority.

Author: Gabriella Agné and Helena LarssonTitle: Disability policy program ? a case study of a municipals implementation of UNs Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.Supervisor: Marianne Westring-NordhAssessor: Ulf DruggeThis study aims to examine how a small municipal in southern Sweden works with the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and examine the assistant officers knowledge about this work and user organizations inclusion and user involvement.The study operates from a qualitative approach based on the results of nine semi-structured interviews with local politicians, assistance officers and representatives from three different user organizations.The results show that the municipal has chosen to work with the implementation of the convention by creating policy programs for their departments through dialogue with user organizations, and by mapping the accessibility to public places. The results also show that the assistant officers have been given no information regarding the convention or the policy programs from their employers and instead operate from national legislations and prepositions. The user organizations feel that they were initially included in the process, but that their impact has later been removed due to structural reorganization..

The aim of this thesis is to examine how the Swedish Film Institute?s arguments regarding file sharing, copyright and the Internet relates to the changes made in the Swedish copyright law during 2003 and 2007, using the current debate about surveillance versus liberty on the Internet as a backdrop. The theory used is based on Lawrence Lessig?s ideas about how a network such as the Internet can be controlled, and what regulating forces a government can use to constrain a certain behavior such as illegal file sharing. By examining referral statements made by the Swedish Film Institute to five different communications from the Swedish government regarding copyright and film politics an idea analysis is being used as a method to answer the following sub-questions: 1.) How has the Swedish copyright law evolved during the latest years? 2.) What arguments are being used by the Swedish Film Institute in issues regarding file sharing, copyright and the Internet? 3.) Are the arguments being used by the Swedish Film Institute regarding these issues changing during the examined period? The findings of the study show that the Swedish Film Institute has been eager to support a more powerful expansion of the copyright laws, often suggesting more powerful solutions than the Swedish government itself.

Today?s political debate on environmental issues and environmental thinking, alongside the Swedish presidency of the EU and Climate Conferences shows that the environment is an important topic. Environment is important, not only in politics, but also for companies and the demand of environmental strategies and environmental reports has increased. This leads to an increased pressure on firms to begin to report on environmental concerns and to create active systems for environmental thinking.The aim of the present study is to examine why firms in the transport sector, mainly lorry transports, reports environmental aspects and what drives these companies to create these reports.Based on stakeholder and institutional theory we aim to examine to which extent stakeholders affects the environmental accounting and reporting. We also aim to explain how the organization is influenced to incorporate external and societal environmental procedures.

The Arctic region is rich in natural resources such as oil, gas, minerals and fish. Climate change causes the Arctic ice melt, making resource extraction possible as well as opening up new transport routes through the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage. This has led to competition and cross-border strife among the Arctic States. The two largest states in the Arctic are Russia and Canada, which are also members of the Arctic Council. Russia and Canada are at the moment involved in several disputes regarding the Arctic territory where the ownership of the North Pole is one example.

Gender equality is a political issue that has gained a lot of support in the last decades. Researchers have however pointed out that gender equality has a wide variety of understandings.SKL (Sveriges kommuner och landsting) is an organization that looks after the interests of local authorities and county councils in Sweden. SKL has by the government been granted 145 million Swedish crowns to support gender mainstreaming at a local level. During a period of three years, 2008-2010, funding has been given to 89 projects for this purpose.The aim of this study is to examine what meanings are given to the term ?gender equality? in these projects.

This study examines whether the policy breadth and the alternatives in European politics affect variations in voter turnout between member states in elections to the European Union Parliament.The theoretical approach assumes that; a larger political polarization, an increase in EU-skeptical parties and a greater voting mobilization among groups with less means results in higher voter turnout figures. The study also consider four other variables; whether the election is held on weekends or weekdays, whether elections coincide with other national elections, whether a country has held the presidential of the EU during or the immediate term prior to the election and finally the turnout figures from national elections.The research design is based upon a quantitative analysis using data from EP elections, national elections and databases from the European Elections Studies (EES). Study unit is twelve member-state countries and their four latest EP elections (1994, 1999, 2004 and 2009). The selected member-states origin from the EU-15 excluding Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg due to their compulsory voting laws.The study found relationships between higher turnout figures in EP-elections and increase in EU-skeptical parties, greater mobilization among groups with less means, elections held on weekends, elections coinciding with other, national elections and an increase in voter figures in national elections..

When stormwater occurs near human activity the water gets polluted. The purity and composition vary widely depending on the types of activities in the area, the type of surface the water comes in contact with, precipitation and many more parameters. It has long been known that stormwater quality can affect both human health and the environment as stormwater is a major contributor to pollution of receiving waters.A human activity that has an impact on the environment in several different ways is traffic and stormwater is no exception. Airborne gases that react with precipitation, oil leaks and fuel systems that drops down on the ground, metals from brake linings and rubber particles from tire wear are some of the aspects you have to take into account when categorizing the relationship between traffic and polluted stormwater.In this project, stormwater samples from a parking lot in Halmstad, Sweden were collected and analyzed with an atomic spectrophotometer. The presence and relationship between copper, cadmium and zinc with different rainfall parameters have been studied.

The research of this Masters thesis examines if during a specific period of time, Environmental scanning connected to Swedish public libraries is discussed in journals that are directly connected to the field of Swedish libraries. The method employed was content analysis of articles, news items and ads with the intention of finding out the extent of Environmental scanning and who carries it out and how and what is scanned. The research covers the period from 2004-01-01 to 2004-08-31. During the research period 1387 articles, news items and ads were analyzed. The study focuses on 81 selected published units that directly include references or discussion about Environmental scanning.

This paper is a discourse analytic policy study with the intention to investigate the swedish government's policy action plan against prostitution and trafficking for sexual purposes. The document is called Handlingsplan mot prostitution och människohandel för sexuella ändamål. The purpose of the study is to investigate whether there is a feminist gender understanding taking place in the action plan. This is made by both see how the problem of prostitution is produced partly by examining whether there is a gender-based power analysis in action. The research questions of this study are:What is considered being the problem with prostitution and trafficking fosexual purposes?Is there a feminist gender understandning in the government's prostitution politics?To answer these questions I use Carol Bacchis method Whats the problem represented to be? And the material being used is the government's actionplan.