Medborgarsammanslutningar har funnits i Sverige sedan 1800-talet och delas upp i folkrörelser, som är av mer ideell karaktär, och intresseorganisationer som sätter de egna medlemmarnas bästa i första rummet. Medborgerligt deltagande i det politiska systemet motiveras med att demokratin ökar då medborgarna tillåts uttrycka sina åsikter. Det svenska systemet har länge präglats av en hög grad av korporatism där medborgarsammanslutningar i hög grad har inkorporerats inom kommunalt och statligt beslutsfattande. Idag talas det dock allt oftare om att det svenska systemet håller på att förändras, att det pågår en avkorporatisering. Enligt många forskare håller det svenska samhället på att ersättas av en växande pluralism där medborgarsammanslutningarnas starka band till staten löses upp.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of language policy in the Post-Soviet states Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wherein the states are seen as rational actors using language as an instrument in the nation-building process. With a take-off point in an underframe of theories on the nation, national identity, instrumentalism, power and the particular role of language in the nation-building process, this thesis shows that language is a key instrument used by the two states.The Ukrainian and Kazakhian language policies create and put across a certain image of the nation, by emphasising the titular languages as symbols of the new states. The line of argument in the language policy is a balance act between large-scale promotion of titular languages and a careful and inclusive attitude towards the Russian language. The biggest differences are that Ukraine, compared to Kazakhstan, has a more comprehensive and consequent language policy with a deeply rooted historic rhetoric. The most obvious instruments of the states in language policy is censuses, corpus-planning and the state choosing one official language..

Argentina var först i världen med att införa lagstadgad kvotering av kvinnor till parlamentet. Målet med kvoteringen var att öka jämställdheten, detta genom att ge kvinnorna mer inflytande. Det har dock visat sig att kvinnornas inflytande över politiken inte ökat i samma takt som deras antal och vi försöker i vår uppsats förklara detta. Vi gör det med hjälp av teori om vikten av kvinnors organisering i politiska sammanhang, och det motstånd denna organisering ofta möter. Uppsatsen är en fallstudie baserad på feministisk teori, forskning om kvinnor i politiken samt material om främst Argentina och Latinamerika.

AbstractUSA:s biståndspolitik har främst använts strategiskt för att främja nationella intressen. Bi-stånd kan vara ett effektivs sätt för en stat att utöva ekonomisk makt över en annan. USA har gett bistånd till Israel sedan början av 50-talet då USA:s stora population av judar har skapat ett närmast inrikespolitiskt intresse i landet.Egypten har efter att fredsföredrag skrevs med Israel 1979 erhållit stora summor i militärt och ekonomiskt bistånd från USA. Det har varit viktigt för USA att se till att Egypten håller freden med Israel samt att ha en av arabstaterna som allierad i Mellanöstern. Egypten har varit det land som, efter Israel, fått mest bistånd från USA.Pakistans geografiska läge har under perioder varit ytterst viktig för USA, framför allt på grund av hotet från Sovjetunionen under Kalla kriget.USA:s strategiska biståndspolitik förklarar vi utifrån realistisk teori inom internationell politik..

Social policy has now received an increased attention in the European Union. The European welfare states experience a high level of unemployment, which the EU now tries to handle through the European Employment Strategy (EES). The core of this essay is whether the welfare institutions of the European member states are integrating through an institutionalization process or not. Within the EU four different types of welfare models can be identified: the Scandinavian, the Continental, the Southern and the Anglo-Saxon. The welfare models differ in the institutional settings e.g.

At the EU summit in Cologne in 1999, a consensus was reached concerning the common foreign and security policy within the European Union. It was decided at the summit that the WEU (Western European Union) should be incorporated into the EU - whom would then be given military capability to act autonomously without the necessity of Nato involvement. This essay investigates the factors that made this agreement possible from a rational choice perspective, but also from the perspective of the power and influence on negotiations on behalf of various types of leadership present at the meeting. Many nations at the summit of Cologne where for the creation of a military force in the form of ESDP (European Security and Defence Policy) within the Union, and many where against such a decision. However a consensus was reached and that is what this essay shall try to explain.

Severe floods caused by heavy autumn rains in year 2000 raised the question whether measures to reduce the damage from high water levels, in the area surrounding lake Glafsfjorden and along the river Byälven down to lake Vänern, are possible. One option is to reduce flow resistance along the river and thereby lower the maximum water level a given inflow would cause. Good knowledge of hydraulic and hydrological conditions is necessary in order to estimate the effect of such flow-reducing measures. In order to quantify such effect a 1-dimensional hydraulic flow model has been set up for the river Byälven using the software package MIKE 11. The model is more detailed, especially concerning topography and bathymetry, than earlier models used for studies of the river.

The purpose of this essay was to analyze the collapse of democracy in the Weimar Republic. This was done by analyzing some of the most turbulent crises in its history like the communists attempt to take power in 1919, the kapp-putsch of 1920, hyperinflation 1923 and the economic depression 1929-1933. The method that I used in this essay is called methodological individualism. It was an analytical framework which helped to understand the citizens view on democracy and legitimacy. The theoretical framework was based on Juan J.Linz and Seymour Martin Lipsets ideas on legitimacy and efficacy.

AbstractCities are once again becoming the locus of economic, social and political processes. The effect of these processes on the city is two-fold: one one hand they threaten to fragment and dislocate the city and the actors within them, on the other hand they give actors within cities new opportunities to react and mobilize resources towards different strategies of integration. The latter gives rise to what Patrick Le Galès calls the collective actor-city. The aim of this thesis is to explore the notion of the city as a collective actor in a swedish context by utilizing Le Galès theory of european cities as collective actors in an abductive case study on the city of Malmoe. By utilizing Le Galès five dimensions that make up a collective actor I analyze interviews conducted with city officals aswell as documents produced from the city wide plan of action Welfare for everybody.

AbstractDue to the success of the Populist Party Sverigedemokraterna in the Swedish election of 2006, the daily paper Sydsvenska Dagbladet published a number of columns written by well-known academics, writers and debaters. Their aim was to address the question of why this happened in the election and what it is in the Swedish society today that brought forward these trends. The first and the last word was given to the writer Fredrik Ekelund, and therefore the debate was named Ekelunddebatten.The debaters are fighting to present their view of the world as the only option when categorizing different societal groups and appointing themselves as group representatives. My aim is to unravel these different conceptions of the world and to do this I use the Dicourse Analysis as a method. I discuss the results with Critical Discourse Theory as a theoretical base and also from the view of the current societal discourses: the working class discourse, the multicultural discourse and the discourse of political correctness.I mainly observe four different conceptions of the world with different posing of problems.

The following thesis is examining compliance with EU-law from a member state perspective. The variation in the compliance level between the member states from 1995 to 2005 is analyzed to prove the fact that the Nordic member countries during the measured time period experienced a low number of infringements. The infringements that did occur were resolved faster and more efficient in the Nordic countries then in the other member states. The theory used to explain the Nordic compliance rate is divided between external and internal pressure in a pull and push model. The external pressure is illustrated with argumentative persuasion from the EU-commission to the individual member states; how the state responds to the persuasion in order to act compliant.

The problem with passive farmers has arised as an effect of the European Union´s common agricultural policy (CAP) and the decouplement from production-based payments. Payments to passive farmers contradict the purpose of the single payment scheme and constitute a great cost for the EU. The new contractual period after 2013 has given rise to discussions on the direction of the CAP with a purpose of increasing the efficiency of the single payment scheme, and reducing passive farming. The aim of the study is to increase the knowledge about a few factors? influence on passive farmers? attitudes towards land use and the CAP.

Every year 67000 tons of food is wasted by Swedish retail stores. The waste implies financial losses for the retailer and it has a huge impact on the global environment. Reducing in-store food waste is thus a win-win situation for both retailers and society. The most effective way to reduce waste is primarily by optimizing the logistics of supply, but customers expect a store with a wide range of products and stuffed shelves. Thus there will always be products about to expire.

I Sverige ser vi idag en arbetsmarknad som är långt ifrån jämställd, detta kan man se exempel på inom svenska företags- och organisationsledningar samt styrelser där kvinnor är starkt underrepresenterade. Den rådande strukturen bidrar till att kvinnor i stor utsträckning exkluderas från de högsta befattningarna och har svårt att överkomma de hinder som möter dem under karriären. Dessa hinder brukar benämnas glastak då de syftar till det osynliga tak som försvårar kvinnors tillträde till de högsta positionerna. Vi vill i denna uppsats belysa vikten av ett aktivt engagemang och arbete med jämställdhet för att hjälpa kvinnor att avancera inom den egna organisationen. Genom fallstudier av två organisationer som använt sig av jämställdhetsprojekt i sitt arbete för en jämställd arbetsplats vill vi analysera hur de främjar att kvinnor på lika villkor som män skall kunna nå toppositionerna.

Efter den 11 september 2001 har det i väst blivit mer accepterat att göra negativa uttalanden om islam och muslimer i diskurser. Vår tes är att ledarsidorna i Jyllandsposten är ett exempel på en sådan diskurs där muslimer framställts som de Andra och ses som fundamentalt olika "danskarna". Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka diskursen om islam/muslimer på Jyllandspostens ledarsidor år 2000-2005. Detta görs genom en kritisk diskursanalys, utifrån postkolonial teori. Vi undersöker även om diskursen kan sägas vara en rasifierad diskurs, och hur diskursen har förändrats sedan år 2000.