The purpose of the following essay is to analyze how the Swedish regional policy has been influenced by the regional policy in the EU. The study builds on the theoretical framework that is Europeanization, the top-down approach, which stipulates where you can find evidence of this influence. To obtain the information that I needed to answer my question formulations, which main question formulation are; in which way has the EU regional policy influenced the Swedish regional policy? I used the method of literature analysis. Both the theoretical framework alongside the chosen method pointed me to analyze the public debate in Sweden in the regional question.

The purpose of the study is that based on focus groups with personal assistants understand how self-determination and participation, expresses itself in work with the users. The study has a focus on the concepts of power and help and social citizenship in the context of self-determination and participation. We are interested to explore how personal assistants reason and argue about different design cases and situations related to self-determination and participation in the relationship with the users. For this study we have used a qualitative method and to collect our data we have used focus groups and different design cases (vignettes). To analyze our data we used the theory about power and help and the theory about social citizenship.

During the last decade millions of people have migrated to Europe. Parallel to this development, we see that many countries are becoming more hostile towards immigration. The success of radical right-wing parties (RHP) has been accredited to natives within the receiving countries turning to RHP to reduce their perceived threat from immigrants. Paradoxically, the RHP-support has also increased significantly among the immigrant population given the common assumption that immigrants are in solidarity with regards to shared experiences of immigration. In this dissertation, I argue for the importance of considering the increased RHP-support amongst immigrants, something that has been neglected in contemporary research.

During the last years around 100 000 immigrants have arrived to Sweden, people with different reasons and different goals for settling down in Sweden. The reason for immigrating to Sweden that will be dealt with in this thesis is following immigration, i.e. when someone moves here because they have relatives living in the country.The reason why it is interesting to study following immigration is that it is an affecting factor for how many that will immigrate to Sweden the following years and may then be used to make a forecast, based on how many first time immigrants there are. To be able to investigate the following immigration analyses are made with time series, logistic regression and Poisson regression. An ARIMA-model has been used to estimate the number of following immigrants in the future.The other part of this thesis will inquire the matter how inclined immigrants are to become Swedish citizens, whether they even apply for citizenship and also how long time it takes from the time when they fulfil the conditions for Swedish citizenship until they apply.

Nilsson, Johan (2007) Nödvändigt men inte tillräckligt ? En studie om sambanden mellan infrastruktur och regional utveckling. [Necessary but not sufficient ? a study about the connections between infrastructure and regional development]D-uppsats 10 poäng, fördjupningskurs i kulturgeografiHandledare: Bo MalmbergSpråk: SvenskaKORTFATTAD SAMMANFATTNINGUppsatsens syfte är att återge diskussionerna kring de påstådda sambanden mellan infrastruktur och regional utveckling samt att undersöka om sådana samband finns. Teorierna grundar sig på konvergens och divergens samt hypoteser kring nätverk.

Today there is a keen competition between regions in the world for companies and inhabitants in order to improve regional development and economic growth. In many regions there is an active effort to create a good home base for companies and inhabitants. Since 2003 municipalities in nine counties in Sweden have come together in co-operative agencies in order to work towards more efficient regional development.This essay focuses on the relation between the state and the co-operative agencies in the regional development policy and which possibilities the state gives the co-operative agencies to pursue an efficient regional development policy, both legally and financially. I have researched and analysed this through models and ideas on how the state governs the administration and through the translation theory. The result of my study is that the co-operative agencies have a relatively large amount of freedom to make there own priorities, but the ability to act efficiently within regional development is limited..

15th of December 2005 was a historical day for the Iraqi people when they could vote for the first time in a free referendum for the draft of the new constitution. The result showed that 79% accepted it. The Iraqi constitution has been criticized by many for its Islamic ascendancy. By giving Islam the role as the source for legislation, will make the situation worse for the Iraqi women, so it has been said.My aim with this Master thesis is not to evaluate weather or not Islam as a religion will undermine women's roll in the society. My ambition is rather to examine the constitution in order to see which kind of theory of citizenship it is inspired from and how will it affect the situation of the Iraqi women.

This essay is a comparative empirical study of ethnic integration mainly of the Russian-speaking minorities in the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) in a post-communism setting. As Lithuania has a Polish minority that is as large as the Russian-speaking, they too shall be included in the study but not as thoroughly as the Russian-speaking minority. Thus the problem is: to what degree are the ethnic minorities integrated with the titular nations in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania? In order to study ethnic integration I have set up a theoretical framework largely based on Weiner?s theory of integration. The theoretical framework focuses on three dimensions: Citizenship, Identity and Segregation.

This study is based on previous research concluding that sub-national actors now function on a complex arena where the nation state is not the sole and self-evident channel to the European Union. Based on that assumption, the thesis is intended to create understanding of the nature of the relationship between the West Sweden regional office and its Värmland commissioners in the case of regional action.The relationship between the regional office and its members was examined in a case study of open consultation around the EU?s new EU 2020 strategy. The questions posed in the thesis are answered by interviews with representatives of West Sweden and certain Värmland members of that organization. The results of the interviews were then analyzed based on a fusion perspective, which addresses various indicators for regional action.The results of the study show that the West Sweden regional office can assume a clearer role in regional influencing, but also that Region Värmland plays an important role in influencing the EU.

The craft of planners are planning for a better future. Knowledge about climate change, environment, health and availability effects the trend towards less car dependent societies in favour of public transport and active transport like walking and biking. This study takes place in Västerbotten, one of Sweden?s most north provinces with a population of 260 000 inhabitants. It is a sparsely populated area with two dominant cities, the other municipalities are largely unpopulated.

Syftet med uppsatsen har varit att se vilka värderingar elever har efter genomförd religionskurs och hur dessa stämmer överrens med lärarnas ambitioner. Genom en intervjustudie av elever och lärare har jag fått fram en bild av både värderingarna och ambitionerna. Dessa diskuteras mot bakgrund av läroplanen och kursplanen samt det medborgerliga utbildningsperspektivet, citizenship education. För att förstå elevernas värderingar bättre har jag använt mig av Bourdieus sociologiska teorier, vilket gett mig en bild av att skolan inte kan ta på sig hela ansvaret när det gäller överförandet av samhällets värden..

This thesis aims at analyzing why the municipality of Flen, in the eastern part of Sweden, has experienced strong depopulation for the last forty years in spite of its relative vicinity to Stockholm. The study uses current theories on regional developement, population theory and theories on regional enlargment to help explain and to evaluate the different regional factors that affect the developement of Flen on the local level. The thesis is primarily focused on the subject of regional policy and strategies to meet regional depopulation. The study also gives a presentation of the strategies of major regional institutions as well as analyzing what impact regional policy have on local policy in the municipality of Flen.Interviews with local officials, politicians and other people representing the population of Flen were carried out to achieve a better understanding of the specific challenges that the municipality faces and of the measures that are taken to meet them. Regional policy in Sweden prioritises measures that promote regional enlargment to link the housing and labour markets together with the regional infrastructure.

In this essay I discuss and analyse if we can witness any signs on regional dimension due to regional representation from our elected representatives in the five constituencies Malmö, Blekinge, Norrbotten, Uppsala and Stockholm. Two seperate terms of office between 1991-94 and 1998-2002 has been compared. In political science there has been much debate about the relationship between voters and their elected. By measuring each and everyone elected representatives in the work of produce introduced bills towards their own constitiency during both terms I have tried to see if there is an occurence of a regional dimension.The theory that´s been applied is based on geographical representation where one might aspect that central metropolitan areas and peripheral regions is somewhat over-represented in legislatures. By using a method of comparison between the five chosen constituencies and theirs elected representatives I have come the the conclusion that there is a weak tendency that this might be the case seen to a regional dimension perspective..

Because of a more globalised world the national states have been forced to make structural changes at both national, regional and local level to cope with different challenges. The regional community has become an important area which has resulted in a policy of more self governing, both for the regional and the local level.The aim of the thesis is to study the relation between regional and local level in the partnerships organisation. To fulfil the aim of the thesis, a case study of Region Skåne is used. The analyse is based on expressions such as cooperation, conflict, power and influence.The result of the thesis confirms that the opinion between the regional and the local level is very different. The representatives from Region Skåne experience the cooperation as quite good because it creates an opportunity for discussions and a possibility to learn from the other actors which in turn creates a qualification in the exchange of knowledge.

The purpose of this essay is to present, from a theoretical framwork about regional democracy, possible methods to handle the regional democratic problems in Östergötland in Sweden and to investigate the opinion of the political parties regarding this issue. Both the national and the local/regional level are investigated. The contents of the essay is based on literature studies and interviews of politicians in Östergötland. Regional democratic problems that is discussed are the political responsibility and the power distribution between the political actors on the regional level. A solution of the problem could be to organize the regional society structure in accordance with one of the following organization models"Statligt regionalt ansvar","Kommuner i samverkan"or"Regionalt folkstyre".