According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

This thesis aims to examine why women are prevented from attaining high positions in organizations. By executing a case study through qualitative interviews with employees from the Human Resource Department at the agency for Swedish Armed Forces, this study presents eight general and specific explanatory factors that hinder women from making a vertical career. The general factors include that women are discriminated against, women are perceived as less competent, men have created organizations and it is easier to recruit men. The specific factors include that a hierarchical organizational structure is correlated to inequality, that both the agency for Swedish Armed Forces and leadership are associated with masculinity and that women with civil competence face double misfortune. The division between general and specific factors indicate that the explanatory factors vary between organizations, which among other things implies that equality work should be tailored for the specific organization.

AbstractTitle: It is not necessary to be the best, but I don?t want to be average Author: Maja Benca & Emma Ender Tutor: Hedvig EkerwaldPurpose: The purpose of this thesis was to identify the subjective experiences of stressors and demands of law students of Uppsala University. Beyond these problems, this thesis was also identifying if there was a balance or conflict between social life and studies from a social psychological perspective. This essay is based on five key questions: How does the subjective experience of stress and demands affect the interviewed law students? How do the interviewed law students handle the stress and demands in their studies and in everyday life? Do the interviewed law students consider there is a balance between social life and studies? How do the law students want to present themselves in front of classmates and teachers? What do the interviewed law students consider to be the main goal in life? Method/Material: The material used in this thesis consists of a total of ten interviews with law students of Uppsala University, five women and five men in the ages of 20 - 32.

Följande studie syftar till att belysa hur organisationer idag arbetar med att mäta och följa upp sina immateriella resurser, vilket i denna studie avser personal. Vi lever idag i ett kunskaps- och tjänstesamhälle vilket innebär att människans bidrag i form av humankapital generellt värderas högre än materiella tillgångar. Dessutom medför en ökad globalisering ett hårdare affärsklimat och konkurrens. En konsekvens blir därför att organisationer för sin överlevnad måste vara allt mer lönsamma, vilket ökar vikten av en rätt hanterad personalresurs som kan generera kostnadsfördelar. Med den bakgrunden bör organisationer fokusera på metoder som kan synliggöra den allt viktigare personalresursen.

After the appointment of a new European Commission in 2004, ?communication? was made a top priority on the agenda. The Commission presented a new communication policy, which would establish a dialogue with the citizens, thereby bringing more democracy to the union and bridging the gap to the citizens. Three documents containing the policy were published, namely an internal action plan for the Commission, Plan D which establishes the framework for national debates and a whitepaper on EU communication policy. These documents were met by mistrust and criticism from many different actors such as journalists and experts.The aim of this master thesis is to examine this new communication policy from a deliberative democratic perspective.

The subject of this master thesis is the school library and how we find its potential unutilized. We look at this problem in connection to the democratic assignment that the Swedish school has. The purpose is to elucidate what the democratic assignment consists of and to establish the role that the school library ought to have in this assignment. To describe the democratic assignment we examine and interpret the documents that regulate school and library activities today, including UNESCO/IFLA School Library Manifesto and United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. We use critical ideology analysis because we consider democracy to be a sort of ideology and have a critical view of how the school library is used or rather not used in school.

The aim of this Master's thesis is to examine and analyze what discourses about children that can be found in three Swedish culture publications, and also to identify the different social roles that are attributed to children in these publications. The theoretical and methodological background is discourse theory, as described by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Additional theory used is social constructionism and Norman Fairclough?s critical discourse theory. Three questions are asked: What discourse/s can be found in these publications? What do these discourses tell us about the view on children within the library domain? What social roles are attributed to the children in the texts and what consequences do these have for the power configuration between children and adults? Furthermore there is a discussion concerning what effects these discourses might have on the direct and indirect reception of children in the library.

This study aims to research how digital media can be used for communication and information management between teachers at preschools and children?s homes. To get an understanding of this we have investigated which channels are being used and for what purposes. The interest has also been to explore preschool teachers and caregivers? attitudes towards digital communication in preschools.A qualitative case study of comparative nature has been conducted, where two preschools were selected because of their use and non-use of digital media for communication with caregivers.

Since reading difficulties is a growing problem in Society and a problem that hinders Children to take an active part in every day life, I wanted to investigate how the School Library can be an educational resource for students with reading difficulties. Using qualitative interviews, I have gained insight into how three school librarians and two teachers work with Students with reading difficulties at two different Schools.The Respondents feel that they have the Knowledge necessary to work with students with reading difficulties, but Wish they had more Resources in terms of Time and Staff to help Students achieve School Goals even better. There are always new assistive technology for Students with Reading Difficulties, and an important part of the Educational work of the School Library, is to be informed of the Facilities available and how they work. I show, in my Research the importance of cooperation between school libraries and teachers to provide the students with reading difficulties the love of reading and work to promote reading. It is important that the School Librarian is an integral part of the School's Team to take full advantage of every opportunity to help the Reading Impaired Students with Information and finding the right Reading Level.

In my essay, I will start with a story that represents my dilemma from my own experience. In the story, dealing with children that challenges teachers and other children in preschool, I wonder how I as a teacher can be fair and inclusive when I feel insufficient on several occasions. I reflect on my own approach because it can be difficult when we encounter children with different needs and abilities in preschool.I write the essay in experience-based essay form. The essays form makes it possible for me to reflect on my own experience and by using selected theoretical perspectives processing my dilemma. In my essay, I explore my own approach, what is meant by fairness and how the concept can be interpreted and how I can in the best way include all children in activities.I conclude that fairness from a perspective can be seen from the five criteria similarity, need, performance, compensation and rights.

Syftet med denna studie är att utifrån ett livskvalitetsperspektiv, indelat i resurs, nätverk och autonomi, undersöka den bostadsrehabilitering som bedrivs i form av en boendekedja i Västerås. Som metod valdes en kvalitativ och deskriptiv ansats för att söka svar på studiens frågeställningar. Empirin består av semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju före detta hemlösa missbrukare som har genomgått bostadsrehabilitering i Västerås. För att få en ytterligare förståelse för boendekedjan i Västerås har även två nyckelinformanter intervjuats. Som teorier valdes livskvalitet, stämplingsteori, missbrukskarriärer och KASAM för att ge en djupare förståelse för hur livskvalitet kan variera utifrån olika levnadsförhållanden.

Water is an important food and an important natural resource. In order to protect these are the Environmental Code and the EU directive given to water protection and related water protection regulations will be established for all water sources until 2010. Those who will prepare a water protection and related water protection regulations is the municipality or person responsible for water supply. The person then decides and declares the area as water protection and related water protection regulations are municipal or provincial government. The idea of creating a water protection is to protect the water supply and the body of water against pollution caused by point sources, diffuse sources and accidents combined.

Previous studies of central tire inflation (CTI) in truck transport of roundwood have shown potential benefits to include more even wood flow and reduced road damage. The greatest benefits are found to be during periods of low bearing capacity such as spring thaw. No previous studies have examined geographical variations in the potential benefit of CTI-equipped trucks. The aim of the study was to develop and use a simple method for geographically prioritizing the use of CTI-equipped trucks within a forest company´s sector of activity.The host company for the study was Holmen Skog. The area studied consisted of Holmen Skog?s entire sector of activity extending from the province of Västerbotten to the province of Småland.

In the construction industry the number of female managers is very low, only four percent (SCB, 2010). In fact, women with management positions has risen by six percentage overall, the last seven years (SCB, 2010). If women in managerial positions continue to grow at this rate, the proportion of women managers will be equal to that of male managers in 2033. More women are needed in the maledominated construction industry in particular because it is deemed that they have a different way of thinking and acting (Granér, 1994). Nelton (1991) believes that companies can take advantage of female managers to be more competitive on the market, the reason why is because women can see other possibilities when solving problems. Rapacioli (2010) argues that the recruitment of women into management positions not only benefits the individual itself but also the company. We have used a qualitative study with a deductive approach. Six respondents from the same company were interviewed, two of them have management positions and the other four were underemployed.The research question of this paper is: What differences and similarities are seen between male and female leadership in terms of their characteristics in the construction industry?The purpose of this paper is to examine similarities and differences in leadership in the construction industry where the focus is on the female and male characteristics. To fulfill our purpose we chose a qualitative study. We have interviewed six respondents at one company in the construction industry. Two of the six respondents have management positions and the remaining four are employed. In this paper we have concluded that there are some differences and similarities between men and women´s leadership in terms of their characteristics.

Market capitalism sets the conditions for how the world is conceived, experienced and organized at various spatial scales (global to local). Currently, competitiveness, entrepreneurship and economic growth are key values that shape how the world is conceived, experienced and organized. Discourses of place marketing, place branding, and the construction of places as (economic) products, are part and parcel of the heightened commodification of space. Tourism has been a major factor in the commodification of place and space. More often than not, tourism has been seen as a possibility for peripheral places, in their struggle finding new ways towards development.