This thesis examines the power of developing countries within the World Trade Organization (WTO). The research question is if there is a change in the power relations between developing countries and developed countries from the establishment of the WTO in 1995 and until mid 2006, and if so, why this change is taking place? The thesis has its theoretical starting-point within regime theory and views it from a critical theoretical perspective. A multidimensional why of dealing with the concept of power is being used to answer if there is a change in the power relations? The conclusion is that there is a small change in the power relations and that the developing countries are gaining more, but limited power.

The study focus on the development of the bilateral relationship between India and the United States and the Next Step in Strategic Partnership (NSSP) from 2004 and the change in U.S. approach to India's neuclear program. With the rise of China to potential great power status I argue that the cooporation between the two is an act to balance the Chinese influence and to prevent future rivalry and a Chinese dominance of the East Asia. For the study I have used concepts and theorys from the realist tradition, in particular theorys of Balance of power and alliance forming..

This essay is a qualitative study concerned with questions about disability. I set out from a definition of disability which highlights non-disabled peoples´ participation in making a disabled person ?the Other?. My aim is to contribute to an understanding of the experiences of disabled people as well as problemize the way that normality and disability is socially constructed. The empirical material of the essay consists of qualitative interviews with disabled men and women and the essay is written with a critical perspective.

How effective is consumer power? Can consumers regulate corporate behavior?And if so is the case, could the mechanisms where consumers regulate corporatebehavior have any democratic value to contribute with? These are the questionsthat this master's thesis comprehends with. The purpose of this writing is toconstruct a theory of consumer power that is compatible with democratic theory,this in order to contribute to the ongoing discussion within the discipline ofpolitical science about the third democratic transformation. A discussion that hasbeen actualized due to the democratic deficit created by the growing corporatepower and the shift of power from state to private enterprises. Besides showingfor a parallel between the democratic mechanisms that exists in the relationbetween citizens and state on the one hand, and the consumers and corporationson the other hand, this paper argues that consumers do have a great potential inregulating corporate behavior towards a higher social responsibility andawareness.

In this study, the aim is to show how the social services fails to implement a specific rights law (LSS) wich is supposed to have the function of protecting the wellfare and provide specific rights to people with severe mental disabilities. By applying chritical theory on this case the aim is to provide an alternative answer on why it is possible for the social services to ignore these peoples rights.By revealing the power structures in the encounter between the system and a person with mental dissablilities, I conclude that people with mental disabilities does not fit in when it comes the social sevices way of implementing the law and further more that a private person is extreamly exposed to the systems arbitrariness..

Our understanding is that responsibility is shifting from the community towards the individual within the field of social work. This resulted in our essay, which aims to study how the representatives within social service assistance and churches in Helsingborg work with personal power. Our aim is also to illustrate how these representatives view the boundaries of responsibility between the individual and the community. Our questions are: How do the representatives work with personal power from a micro and macro perspective? How do the representatives look upon their position as representatives? What do the representatives consider as responsibility of the individual respective the community? And; Are there preventing factors from individual responsibility? We obtained our empirical material from a qualitative method consisting of interviews.

The aim of this study was to examine the aspect of power in the relationship between the personal assistant and the disabled person he or she works with (the user). The study was based on interviews with five personal assistants who worked for private companies that provided personal assistance. Seven themes were identified and discussed. These were: the users amount of control over the assistance given, the workplace environment, the working conditions, the organization of personal assistance by private companies, the assistants recourses and usage of power and the users participation in chores. To analyze these themes I used Foucault's theory of power and the perspective of Human Resource.

This essay shows how the concept of virtue can deepen our understanding considering processes of empowerment. A virtue is understood as a trait of character, manifested in habitual action, that it is good for person a to have. Virtues are interpreted as socially constructed. Empowerment is presented as a process toward self-confidence and self-determination where recourses and freedom propels the development toward power for the individual, the household and the community. Why does the concept of virtue deepen our understanding? It is argued that our theoretical perceptive of empowerment needs to better encompass values, norms and practise.

This essay discusses immigrants? prospects of constructing an identity in a multicultural society like Sweden. The discussion is primarily theoretical but offers a few empirical examples to demonstrate its relevance. Furthermore, the ontological standpoint of this essay draws on an understanding of the world and our knowledge as constructed which implies that identities are also constructed. The process of identity making is further understood as a relational process in which others recognition is central to the individuals own understanding of his or hers identity.

AbstractThe Swedish agricultural organisation, LRF, stands in front of many changes and the work with the changes in the organisation has caused some conflicts at the top. Is it like Michels say that it's a few people at the top that rules? The case with LRF shows to be something different, since the president Caroline Trapp was re-elected. The election committee proposed a new president, but the assembly had another opinion and re-elected Caroline Trapp. This shows that the opinions at the top were not the same as among the members of the organisation and the election committee couldn?t rule over them.In this essay I try to understand what kind of organisation LRF is and what made this case special.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the way George W. Bush used the language as a means to exercise power in an attempt to justify Operation Iraqi Freedom. The theories used to answer the purpose are discourse analysis and three different moral metaphors that are applied on the data.The collected material for the metaphors is constituted of cognitive linguistic books from prominent linguists, such as George Lakoff, Alan Cruse and William Croft, and the material for the discourse analysis is also collected from prominent discourse analysts such as Michél Foucault and Norman Fairclough. The official White House website provides the material for my data. The scientific method used in this study has been qualitative text analysis where the hermeneutic approach has been an essential part of it.The main question: In what way did George W.

The purpose of this essay was to investigate socialworker's perception of threats and violence in their daily work from the perspective of power. In order to obtain as clear and distinct responses as possible, I used qualitative interviews for this study. The respondents represent a "socialförvaltning" that handles financial assistance in a medium-sized city. This department was chosen because the socialworkers that handle financial assistance at this department have been identified by the media as particularly vulnerable. The study showed that verbal threats are commonplace but physical violence is rare.

In the present case, the conception of policy hitchhiking gets evaluated in terms of its implications for democracy. This task is executed through the accomplishment of a case study of the use of social- and environmental clauses in the Swedish competitive tendering.A useful definition of policy hitchhiking, including different types of actors, is created.Through the defining of democracy and policy hitchhiking, the author comes to the conclusion that policy hitchhiking in some respects does meet democracy values.The thesis? result can in some sense be regarded as a contribution to the pursuit of knowledge of how power is distributed in the society and how the current distribution can be explained and understood..

This is a thesis about the American empire. I also focus my work to see if this American empire is declining. The two main questions I ask and want to answer in this thesis are: is America an empire and is it in decline?I first conclude that America has been an empire ever since the end of the Second World War. The sheer military and economic power of the American empire matches and exceeds the ones before them.

Abstract.