By the same time as the recent enlargement of the European Union, where Poland became a member, it was officially stated that the gender mainstreaming-policy was to be integrated into every area of EU. NGO:s working as entrepreneurs for the gender mainstreaming norm in Poland supported the accession largely because they believed it would help spreading the norm also on a national level. Qualitatively analyzing the Polish case and the difficulties gender mainstreaming as a norm candidate meets with I contrast expectations with what could actually be EU:s role in this matter.Arguing that EU is a context with room for spreading norms by both bargaining and socialization, this paper takes a social constructivist approach. Gender mainstreaming as a norm is difficult for EU to apply on their members, and thus was not widely discussed during accession negotiations. In the same time.

What kind of international actor is the European Union and how shall we define it? These are questions that many have tried to answer often by addressing the apparent uniqueness of the EU itself. One of these theories is Normative power Europe. A theory whose main argument is that the EU is best perceived as a changer of norms. My aim with this thesis is to test this claim and to see if the Union should be regarded as a normative power.

ABSTRACTThe EU as a normative power in Belarus ? a critical caseBy Anna JohnssonUniversity of VäxjöSchool of Social SciencesSpring semester 2007The European Union?s identity is a much debated topic. Some say it?s a unique actor in the international arena because of the different tools it has at its disposal. Ian Manners claims that the EU is what he calls a normative power.

Drawing on a broad theoretical framework that includes theories about globalisation and honourculture, this thesis aim is to demonstrate that globalisation and honourculture, constitute a conceptual network, i.e a structural relational matrix in which concepts are embedded. Being part of conceptual network, these concepts are related to each other ontologically. The idea of conceptual network, and the thesis as a whole, draw upon what has been called ?relational perspective?This study aims to show the impact of globalisation on honourculture. The study shows the importance of narrative in the construction of discursive boundaries.

The purpose of this study was to analyse the concept of empowerment and its meaning in the political document "En Förnyad Folkhälsopolitik" from the present Swedish government, containing guidelines and politics in the area of public health. The underlying question was if it could be considered as representative for some kind of general "empowerment approach" since the concept is central to the very definition of social work by the International Federation of Social Workers IFSW and International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW).By comparing its definition and consequences in the document with a historical review of different contexts of empowerment the conclusion was made that such a common approach doesn´t exist at all. The meaning of empowerment in the central document showed some similarities with the "northamerican" version of the concept represented by the social scientist Charles Murray, which is just one of the political meanings of empowerment. Alternative ways of understanding the concept was also presented such as being a tool of a constant conflict between central political principles or as a fashionable but not important word. Another alternative was to consider it a means of power through witch different political discourses tries to dominate the world..

TitleSystems, Stability and Power. The Discourse of Information in Organizing Knowledge.AbstractThe aim of this Master's thesis is to inquire into the consequences of an unequal distribution of power between information discourses in the field of knowledge organisation. A deconstruction of Jennifer Rowley's and John Farrows introductory textbook Organizing Knowledge from 2000 is related to the major discourses of information in LIS. Questions posed in this study are: What meaning is ascribed to information in the material studied? Which information discourses are given a dominant position? Which are excluded? and: How does this affect the construction of the library and information science student's identity, in relation to practices of knowledge organisation? The theoretical framework is provided by Ernesto Laclau's and Chantal Mouffe's theory of discourse and combined with techniques for text analysis originating from the work of Norman Fairclough.The analysis reveals a strong domination of a cognitive discourse of information that underlines the importance of information systems for the organisation of knowledge.

The aim of this study is to increase knowledge about how a group of newly graduated social workers reflect on the practical daily work and their positions working with clients who are in need of social and/or economic resources. More precisely the purpose is to find out how these seven newly graduated social workers viewed working with clients during theoretical and practical studies. The aim is to analyze which techniques and methods could be seen in these narratives. Furthermore the aim was to find out if and how these seven social workers reflected on the power relation between social worker and client.The material of this study consists of seven semi-structured interviews. Throughout gathering the data and analyzing it, the qualitative method in form of narrative approach was used.

The purpose with the essay is to illuminate four former clients? personal stories about the meeting with the authority in the Swedish welfare system and the institutionalization theywent through. The questions being asked in the essay focus on communication, the relationship concerning power and the former clients attitude towards the institutionalization as a treatment. Four interviews were held with former clients who were institutionalized sometime between the ages of 15-25. The results were then analyzed by theories focusing on communication as a way to gain power and how social interaction may influence the individual attitudes towards authorities.

The background of this paper is the dual role that the social worker can have, of beeing both supportive and controlling in the meeting with clients. It is also about the power the social worker can have, how they handle the power in their profession and how they remain to it in the relationship with the client. The study is qualitative and built on interviews with eight social workers that work in different areas in the social services. We have chosen to see this dual role as if the social workers have to, in their daily work, handle the roles as one authority role and one supportive role towards the client.The purpose of this study is to understand how the dual role as the social worker has in the profession, as a helper and a authority, is expressed in the work and relationship with the client. We have turned this purpose into two questions: How do social workers with authority remain to the dual roles of the profession? How do the social workers describe and understand power?We don´t want to generalize in this study, we want to give an example of the social workers own experiences about the dual role.

The aim of this study was to examine how clients who have or have previously had a drug- and/or alcohol addiction experienced interchanges with social workers. In this study, eight semi-structured interviews were made with respondents from an out-patient clinic in a small town in Sweden. Questions were asked regarding clients? experience of the social workers' attitudes during the initial meeting as well as all continuing meetings. Other possible variables that affected the interchanges, either positively or negatively, including how the clients wanted to be treated, were also explored.

Kosovoalbanerna är i Sverige en relativt ny invandrargrupp. Därigenom är kunskapen om deras kulturella och sociala förutsättningar ganska okänt..

The centre of attention in this essay is on public-private-partnerships in Swedish city planning. It discusses the phenomenon and tries to identify the problems and possibilities that may appear when private and public actors are trying to work together to plan new cities or parts of cities in a process with network structures. The main questions that is asked is ?what vision for the city can we se, and who's vision is it?? together with the question of where the actual power to make the city plan and the vision can be find. The soon-to-be-built area Ulriksdal in Stockholm were Peab AB and Solna Stad stands as main actors has been chosen to illustrate the possible problems and is analysed from different angles, but the writers intention is also to say something on the matter in general.

This study illustrates how the power relation between the trustee and principals are experienced and maintained in proportion to the missions design. The main focus lies on understanding of how trustee perceives and applies the mission`s cornerstones and how power can be expressed in the relationship between trustees and principals. Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with trustees whose principals were mentally disabled. The interviews were then analyzed with the support of Foucault's concept of discipline, knowledge, control, surveillance and reward/punishment and Tilly's theory of persistent inequality We have obtained an understanding of the complexity of the assignment regarding the mission`s cornerstones who goes into every other, and all respondents agreed that the cornerstones should be considered as a whole. We concluded that the trustee on the basis of the mission's design possesses a power that is necessary and important to have regarding the relation to his principal and its social network.

AbstractSweden is a country with good reputation when it comes to questions aboutequality. The definition of equality is not always explicit though. The aim of thisthesis is to examine what Swedish equality is and what it should be. By studyingdescriptions of equality and discrimination in the political programs of the partiesof the Swedish parliament from the sixties until today, I examine which groupsare included and excluded from the concept of equality. The analyse shows thatthe concept initially was only referring to class matters.

Child sex tourism is a growing problem in todays globalized world.This paper is conserned with the problems of those who isn't sexually drawn to children when they are in their own community but who, on their travels, sexually abuse them.The aim of the study is to analyze what makes people commiting sex crime abroad, and breake those laws which, usually, are in line with the persons own values and normsystems.What impact has travelling and tourism on the behaviour of the individual? And which social factors makes people into sudden offenders? By comparing the litterature on child sex turismwith theories in sociology and criminology you could se some factors of and structures in society contributing to the issue..