This study aims mainly to investigate what kind of role the public library plays in the regional and local development. The aim is also to investigate how the public library can strengthen the role as a factor of regional and local development. To explore the subject, the study is focused on the Swedish region of Västra Götaland. Three officials along with two policy documents, are included in the study as representatives of the region. Four public library managers are also interviewed but as representatives of the local perspective.

In 1998 a new regional development policy was introduced by the Swedish government. A central feature in the policy was the formation of partnerships at the regional level. The partnerships were meant to consist of local and regional stakeholders, representing a great variety of interests, who would collaborate in order to improve regional development. The new policy was promoted, besides being more efficient, as a way to broaden political participation and to break male-dominated structures.This thesis discusses whether the regional partnership actually favours ?women's interests?, in terms of how the relationship of power between women and men is constituted by the model.

There is a clear difference between types of regions and forms of regionalization. This theoretical division can point out other division lines on different areas and levels, like the one of discourses. In this article is urged that regional political discourses may be divided in West and East European ones. To argue for West and East differences in regional discourse the article shows division lines both in the history of regionalization but also in ideologies. The regional policy of the EU is one example for today's regionalization as a West discourse and the Transylvanian in Rumania as an example for the East discourse.

The concept of citizenship was created in Greece about 600 BC, and has for most of the time been treated as a philosophical concept, or as a concept of political science. In spite of the fact that sociologists have taken an interest in the concept in the second half of the 20th century there is hardly any empirical research to substantiate how the common man perceives and defines the concept. Disabled people to a great extent perceive themselves as belonging to a forgotten sector of society in that they experience administrative barriers, shortcomings in the way individuals and institutions behave towards them, institutional discrimination, being socially dead, etc. ?The aim of this study has been to explore how citizenship is perceived and defined by disabled people in Great Britain and Sweden, focusing on the perception of rights and obligations, and how these rights and obligations have been made available to them by society.?The study was carried out as a qualitative study.

Intentionen med detta arbete är att uppmärksamma citizenship education som blivit allt mer betydande när det gäller skapandet av nationell enighet/identitet i Kenya. Mer specifikt innebär det att arbetets syfte var att undersöka hur utvalda kenyanska gymnasielärare arbetar med att förmedla kunskapen om citizenship education för att skapa nationell identitet och vilket innehåll som presenteras. Bifrågan blir om lärarna därefter uppmanar eleverna på något sätt att praktisera den kunskap som förmedlas i skolan om demokratiska rättigheter i samhället. För att besvara undersökningens frågeställningar har jag granskat dokument, i form av litteratur och databaser samt genomfört intervjuer, vilka sedan har analyserats. Respondenterna i intervjuerna har fått svara på likvärdiga frågor och ämnesområden där sedan dessa har satts i kontrast mot varandra för att frambringa eventuella differenser.

Under lång tid har svenska kommuner, län och landsting samarbetat med sina motsvarigheter på andra sidan Östersjön. I den här uppsatsen ligger fokus på ett av dessa samarbeten: det mellan Jönköpings län och Alytus län i Litauen. Mellan åren 1999 ? 2003 pågick ett projekt som kallades "Regional Development Plans in Lithuania". Projektet syftade till att hjälpa Alytus med att först skapa en regional utvecklingsplan och sedan att försöka implementera denna.

Around the world governments reach out to their emigrant population, embracingthem as part of the nation, expecting their economic contribution. The aim of thisthesis is to examine the political strategy and governmental activities of ElSalvador with the purpose to include emigrants in the nation building project. Themain question is what consequences this has for the significance of citizenship.This case study is based on the theoretical framework of external citizenshipwhich is a new fenomena emanating from states growing interest of theirexpanding diaspora. It divides external citizenship in two parts; a legal dimensionand a practiced identity.I find that as the economic potential of salvadoreans abroad increase, theSalvadorean government makes institutional changes to tie emigrants to thenationstate. This results in the possibility for salvadoreans to remain citizens intheir country of origin, practicing their salvadorean identity at the same time asthey naturalize abroad.

The economic growth in Ireland, during the 1990s, lead to changing migration patterns. Ireland became a destination country for immigrants instead of an emigration country. Before 2004 people who were born on the island of Ireland had a constitutional right to Irish citizenship. This right was removed after a referendum in 2004.National identity is a sense of community constructed through common history and defines who belongs to the nation. The purpose of this thesis is to do a critical discourse analysis of the debate in media before the referendum.The analysis was done on texts from The Irish Times, one of the major newspapers in Ireland.

AbstractThe aim of this study is to investigate the implementation process and the implementation steering of the social development aspects, gender equality and integration, in the program for regional development of the region Kronoberg in the period of 2004-2007.The study asks three questions: 1) How have the social development aspects, gender equality and integration, been implemented in the program for regional development of the region Kronoberg? 2) What has facilitated or hindered the implementation of the two social development aspects? 3) What possibilities to steer the implementation process of the two social development aspects exist at the governmental and at the regional level?In order to answer these questions a qualitative method has been used. To be able to analyse the empirical material, which consists of documents and interviews, the theoretical framework comprehends the policy process and implementation steering. The conclusion is that the incorporation of the social development aspects in the regional development program does not fully correspond with the central intentions, and that is due to circumstances at the regional level..

The aim of the thesis is to analyze the role of regional development planning concerning a regional perspective of green structure and to reflect on its future role. The target group of the study is foremost practitioners but also students of regional planning and development. Three questions are examined. 1) What view concerning green structure has the regional planning body of Stockholm County Council (RTK) communicated through the years? 2) Has this view contributed to generating a common understanding concerning green structure among the actors in the county? 3) Has this common understanding been referred to by actors in discussions concerning how this green structure should develop? The empirical material consists of documents from rtk, the County Administrative Board, the municipalities of the county, a network of ngo:s, as well as interviews with representatives from the above mentioned organizations.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has progressively revised the rule of purely internal situations to ensure a wider scope of application of the economic freedoms as well as the EU citizenship right to move and reside freely within the Union. This development, combined with the increasing importance of fundamental rights, has strengthened the family life protection of those EU citizens who come within the scope of EU law. The limit between the individuals who may benefit from a EU right to family reunification and fundamental rights protection and those who find themselves in purely internal situations has, however, become more legally uncertain. The disadvantage suffered by those who fall outside the scope of EU law is known as reverse discrimination.The 2011 case Zambrano confirmed the trend towards an increasingly generous EU law protection of family life in cases where the exercise of freedom of movement and enjoyment of EU citizenship rights is potentially restricted by a Member State measure. By contrast, in the subsequent McCarthy- case, it became clear that families in purely internal situations may only rely on national immigration and procedural law to obtain family reunification and protection of their fundamental rights.

This thesis advances an explicit, consequent, and wholesome ethnomethodological perspective on brand community. It recognizes brand community as a social problem ? something to be continuously solved and achieved. The two main perceivably stable features of the Nikonian community are (1) practical usefulness and (2) the social link. The authors suggest that both features are constantly accomplished through three types of aggregate behaviour (1) lurking, (2) ordinary membership, and (3) community citizenship behaviour (CCB).

The base for the study is laid during an internship at a regional office in Brussels. The study initially concentrates on the function and activities of different regional offices located in Brussels, in order to answer the core question.The main focus is to reveal an eventual change of cooperation patterns between different regional offices, and in particular the eventual redirection away from a main cooperation between offices deriving from the same national state.Through an empirical material, based on a series of interviews, an analysis is made using three hypotheses concerning the patterns of cooperation among regional offices.The notion of a coming change stated by, in particular, two older studies is used as a theoretical steppingstone with the conclusion that a change, in the way offices collaborate, has taken place..

Det finns många teorier kring det sociala ansvar företag bör ta och en av dem är Corporate Citizenship. Terminologin inom detta område tycks tilltala företag och de säger sig gärna vara ?goda samhällsmedborgare?. Frågan är vad det betyder att vara en medborgare och vad detta i sin tur innebär för företagen.Flera författare har ställt upp kriterier för vad ett företag bör uppfylla för att räknas som god samhällsmedborgare, men det saknas till stora delar empirisk forskning. Denna uppsats för fram en analysmodell bestående av fem karaktärsdrag en god företagsmedborgare bör inneha och applicerar detta på åtta företag.

The Swedish regions are new phenomena, from the start from the new regionalism which started in the 1980´s. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze Region Skåne and Västra Götalandsregionen to come to a conclusion which model of region they are and want to be by using theories of regional identity and identity of politics and see similarities and differences. My research question is: Which of cultural, administrative and functional region are Region Skåne and Västra Götaland striving to construct?   The methods I have used are qualitative text- and content analysis to analyze the regions, by using theories about regional identity and identity of politics. Furthermore, I am using some statistic from SOM-institutet to analyze the regional identity in the regions.   The result show that Region Skåne is constructing a cultural region, because of their strong regional identity and that the politicians are using identity of politics to combine the citizens.