This Master Thesis investigates changes in Thailand's foreign policy towards its neighbouring country Burma. It argues that Thai foreign policy towards Burma has experienced major changes during four periods between 1945 and the present. The thesis investigates these foreign policy changes during the four periods. What changes occurred? What were the reasons for the changes? What reasons dominated during what periods? The four periods of Thai foreign policy changes towards Burma and the common history of the two countries since their respective foundations does not suggest a stable peaceful relationship or a bitter hostile relationship leading to war.

The state of Israel is known as the only democracy in the Middle East. The purpose of this study was to examine if there is aspects in the Israelis society that can be questioned in terms of liberal democracy.Areas of concerns in the study are the Israeli official policy's concerning inclusion and exclusion of their citizens in areas of property owning, personal status and the duty of military service.The results show that the Israeli society distinguishes their citizens in these areas by their ethnic origin, in favour for the Jewish population. The law prohibits changes in the states Jewish character. One clear example how this is presented is that a Jew is prohibited to marry a non-Jew. The results show also that this official policy by the Israeli state violates important principles of liberal democracy.

The prospect of Turkish accession to the EU has sparked controversy in many of the member countries. It has highlighted the different ways in which European as well as Turkish identity is being defined in the debate, with some politicians seemingly trying to draw on old prejudices in order to make the case against membership. By utilising discourse analysis as advocated by Thomas Diez, this thesis seeks to explore the debates regarding the Turkish accession bid in the British House of Commons. Its purpose is to analyse how ?EU? and ?Turkey?, understood as contested concepts, gets described in different ways.

The care for the elderly in the municipalities has recently seen the need for a formalized system for quality assurance. Under increasing demands for monetary efficiency while bound by law to retain acceptable standards in health care, there is need for efficient and at the same time quality-assured management. The municipalities often solve this puzzle by introducing systems and standards influenced by theory-clusters such as NPM (New Public Management), TQM (Total Quality Management) or other quality management theories.This essay focuses on how the public administration in the municipalities defines quality and designs and implements system for formalized quality assurance. Our basic view of organizations is institutionalist and our theoretical framework includes theories about quality, NPM and TQM..

Teorier om kön och ledarskap framhåller att könsordningen, sociala och kulturellauppfattningar om kön samt stereotyper om manligt och kvinnligt försvårar förkvinnor att nå högre ledande befattningar. Genom samtalsintervjuer med fempersoner vilka är involverade i rekryteringen av förvaltningschefer i Helsingborgs,Lunds och Malmö kommun har vi undersökt vilka uppfattningar ochföreställningar som kan påverka rekrytering av förvaltningschefer ur ettkönsperspektiv. Vi har funnit att könsrelaterade värderingar och fenomen somhomosocial reproduktion har en inverkan på rekryteringar av förvaltningschefer ide tre undersökta kommunerna. Vi har dessutom funnit att kommunerna betonarreflektion och handlingskraft avseende köns- och jämställdhetsfrågor irekryteringsprocesserna i olika utsträckning. Att det är nödvändigt med en balansmellan reflektion och handling anser både vi och de befintliga teorierna är enförutsättning för att jämställdhet ska beaktas i rekryteringen..

Researchers, planners, and government agencies agree that road safety for children must be a priority and in particular that children should have a safe and secure way to travel to and from school regardless of age or the distance travelled. In Sweden, child traffic safety is a key part of the country?s Nollvision, a long-term traffic policy goal of ?no deaths or serious injuries?. Unfortunately, many countries have recorded increases in child traffic accidents as the percentage of parents who drive their children to school and thus congestion around schools has increased. Common strategies include traffic safety education for children, the redesign and improvement of traffic infrastructure, bicycle training, and carpooling.This thesis assesses the traffic problem around Ludvigsberg School in the district Valbo in Gävle, Sweden.

MST, eller O Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurias Sem Terra (Rörelsen för Lantarbetare utan Jord), är en av latinamerikas och kanske världens största och mest inflytelserika sociala rörelser. Rörelsen är dessutom verksam i en av världens största politiska, ekonomsika, kulturella och sociala smältdeglar.I vår uppsats vill vi undersöka, dels vilka metoder som en social rörelse kan tillämpa när det gäller att driva frågor om demokrati framåt. Som teoretiskt ramverk tillämpar vi befintliga teorier i kombination med egna begrepp. För att kunna svara på frågeställning har vi genom en bred empirisk bas försökt åskådliggöra den kontext i vilken MST arbetar och utifrån denna information dragit våra slutsatser..

The civil war in Sierra Leone was a very complicated conflict, both in its origin as well as in its realization. Many actors, along with the diamond trade, played vital parts in making the war carry on for a decade. In this paper I will try to clarify the relations between the actors and the diamonds, first and foremost the part the diamonds played in the conflicts start and continuation. I will also show what has happened in the country and in the diamond industry after the wars conclusion. What I find is that diamonds did not play the only part in the origin of the conflict but that the poor economic state the country was in had its part.

In 1994 it was decided that a new network based organizational model was to be initiated to face the problems of some of the gender inequalities in Sweden. The organisation structure was named Resource Centre for Women (ResursCentrum för kvinnor).This essay constitutes a qualitative case study of governing, with this organisation structure as my field of inquiry. My ambition has been to outline and explain what kind of governing has been used and how it works. I have also tried to identify potential changes of the ways of governing over time. To help me out with that task, I have applied a theoretical framework, characterized of a governance perspective, and have used terms as: governing with networks, partnership, projects and visionary government to interpret my empiric material.My result shows that there have been various changes in the ways of governing, from a more hierarchal government form of governing to a more governance based one..

In this thesis I discuss and analyze the integration policy of the community Landskrona, if they have any at all and how they in that case use it in their daily work to counteract the obvious problems with segregation, racism and negative attitudes towards people with other ethnic background than Swedish.During the second half of the 20th century Sweden has received a lot of immigrants who built our country and contributed to the rich variety of people we see today. Landskrona was one of the towns who received a lot according to its size, and with the economic crisis in the 1990s it was easy to blame the immigrants for our own deteriorated situation.Today Landskrona is working for an implementation of integration policies in all institutions and organizations to make it a matter of course just like equality. It is not the ethnic background that is the problem; it is being an outsider and economically segregated that lead to resistance of the society. The community is prioritizing the four areas job for everyone, living, education and culture..

The purpose of this essay is to understand the rhetoric presented by Henry V in Shakespeare?s St. Crispin?s day speech. More specifically, it examines the speech from a "dramatistic" point of view, i.e.

In 1988 the Swedish Social Democratic Party decided to reform the tax system. In this essay I analyse the motives behind their acting on a basis of the party strategic theories of Przeworski and Sjöblom. The reform commonly referred to as the tax reform of the century, was although they considered that it was a high risk project pursued together with the Liberal Party. The new tax system implicated a less progressive income tax scale, actions against tax avoidance and raised value-added tax. The empirical analysis is primarily based on memoirs written by the key actors.

The aim of this essay was to examine how the decision-making in LVU cases are motivated in the judicial decisions. How has the principle of whats in the best interest of the child been noticeable in these judicial decisions and how are the child's needs and the consequences for the child of the drug abuse been described? When the parents have been judged to have given a non acceptable consent, how have they been described and how has the parents described the situation?Our research is of a qualitative nature, a document analysis of judicial decisions in LVU cases. We analyzed eight court cases containing decisions from County Court, Fiscal Court of Appeal and The Supreme Administrative Court.Our results showed that parents were described in the judicial argumentation as negative stereotypes and a picture of unreliability were created. What was best for the child were not expressed in words but woven into the children's needs and in most cases the consequences of the abuse of drugs were not made clear..

Fenomenet med kvinnliga självmordsbombare är en relativt ny företeelse. De senaste åren har det dock visat sig bli allt vanligare i till exempel Ryssland och mellanöstern. Media utformar rapporteringen kring kvinnliga respektive manliga självmordsbombare olika. Diskursen är låst till uppfattningen om att mannen är norm och att det finns olika anledningar till varför kvinnor jämfört med män väljer att använda sina liv som vapen. Till exempel framhålls ofta en kvinnliga självmordsbombares skäl till handlingen som personliga.

Uppsatsen beskiver den europeisering av den svenska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen som har skett sedan det svenska inträdet i den europeiska unionen. Genom att utgå från konstruktiv teori förklarar arbetet hur normer inom det europeiska utrikes- och säkerhetssamarbetet (CFSP) förs över till den svenska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen. I arbetet framhålls att den svenska säkerhetspolitiken, efter det kalla krigets slut och Sveriges medlemskap i EU, i allt större utsträckning börjat korrelera med den europeiska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen. Korrelation framträder framförallt när den svenska neutralitetspolitiken studeras, en politik som omvärderats sedan inträdet i EU. Uppsatsen belyser också hur både den svenska och den europeiska säkerhetspolitiska diskursen har förändrats över tid..