What are the basic thoughts formulated in the Heraclitean fragments? A cosmology, a philosophy of nature, the idea that all can be reduced to a single substance? There is always a risk that Heraclitus is fitted into a thought pattern he doesn?t belong to, if we ? from our present horizon ? focus on continuity in an attempt to frame his thinking as part of an overall progress, running from the so-called pre-Socratics to Aristotle, in the history of philosophy. If we picture the dawn of Western civilization as an early development of scientific thinking, built on a gradual and continuous growth of knowledge, we will easily go astray as we try to discover the Greek origins of philosophy. Assuming, for example, that the readings of Heraclitus as a natural philosopher have come to a dead end, can we approach the fragments from a different angle?The aim of this paper is not to give a systematized reading of all the remaining fragments of Heraclitus, but neither to necessarily contradict the various interpretations that emphasise how these shattered remains reflect a coherent philosophy.

Det finns forskare som påstår att diskussioner om samhällsstrukturer och makt igrunden bygger på antaganden om människans natur. Denna studies syfte är attundersöka relationen mellan individers människosyn och deras politiskaövertygelser. Närmare bestämt vill vi mäta samband mellan vilka antagandenindivider gör om människans natur och deras ideologiska hållning och vilketpolitiskt parti de sympatiserar med. Vår grundhypotes är att det är troligare attantaganden om människans natur ligger till grund för individers ideologiskahållning och partisympatier i första hand, och inte tvärt om. Vi anser att detta ärviktigt att mäta för att det i hög grad är politiska beslut som påverkar vårsamhällsutveckling.

What are the basic thoughts formulated in the Heraclitean fragments? A cosmology, a philosophy of nature, the idea that all can be reduced to a single substance? There is always a risk that Heraclitus is fitted into a thought pattern he doesn?t belong to, if we ? from our present horizon ? focus on continuity in an attempt to frame his thinking as part of an overall progress, running from the so-called pre-Socratics to Aristotle, in the history of philosophy. If we picture the dawn of Western civilization as an early development of scientific thinking, built on a gradual and continuous growth of knowledge, we will easily go astray as we try to discover the Greek origins of philosophy. Assuming, for example, that the readings of Heraclitus as a natural philosopher have come to a dead end, can we approach the fragments from a different angle?The aim of this paper is not to give a systematized reading of all the remaining fragments of Heraclitus, but neither to necessarily contradict the various interpretations that emphasise how these shattered remains reflect a coherent philosophy.

The object of this thesis is the foundation of ethics. The question is whether there exists a universal core to ethics consisting of a fundamental ethical principle across cultures. This principle could for example be the so-called Golden Rule, which goes as follows: ?You should do to others what you want them to do to you?. The Golden Rule is to be found in many of the world?s religions and is also reflected in secular society.

Det här är en uppsats som behandlar demokratisynen hos deltagare vid European Social Forum 2008 i Malmö. Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om det finns samband mellan erfarenheter av politiska handlingar, identifiering med den globala rättviserörelsen och synen på hur demokratiska beslut i allmänhet bör fattas. Individer inom den globala rättviserörelsen kan ses som handlande subjekt inom utvecklingen av demokratiska system, då rörelsen formulerar en kritik mot globalisering och odemokratiska beslutsformer och strävar efter att möjliggöra en annan form av globalisering och en annan form av demokrati. Teoretiskt tar undersökningen avstamp i tre idealtypiska demokratiformer: deltagardemokrati, deliberativ demokrati och representativ demokrati, som har tre skilda utgångspunkter när det gäller former för beslutsprocesser. Även politiskt handlande går att skilja åt teoretiskt, i form av kollektivt och individuellt politiskt handlande.

The VAT Directive (2006/112/EC) does not regulate Member States? opportunities to intervene against tax evasion. The European Court of Justice has clarified the situation in case C-255/02 Halifax. This case establish that the universal principle against the abuse of rights applies to VAT, which means that Member States have the opportunity to redefine transactions not involving a breach of law but nevertheless goes past what the legislature envisaged at the introduction of the provision.A debate has risen as to whether the principle against the abuse of rights is equally ap-plicable in Swedish domestic law on VAT. The administrative court of appeal in Go-thenburg, Case No.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

Företag kan inte bara konkurrera med låga priser för att ?vinna? sina kunder längre, med de svenska detaljhandelskedjorna Expert och Onoffs konkurser som exempel. Lönsamhet är ett företags yttersta mål, men om inte intäkterna kan täcka kostnaderna kan en eventuell konkurs vara nära. Därför måste företag kunna hantera det ?mjuka värdet? på ett tillfredsställande sätt.

This essay is about the asylum and immigration politics within the EU. Due to the heavy criticism the EU has been exposed to from among others different kind of human rights organizations I have become interested to find out what kind of asylum and migration politics right now is being formed by the member states of the union. Thus the purpose is also to see if the EU is creating a policy within this area that intends to live up to the human rights obligations.My overall research question is:Which ideas characterize the asylum and immigration politics within the EU?The theoretical perspectives of universalism and particularism are used as two analytical tools in order to understand the phenomenon I am investigating and to identify its characterizing ideas. In my essay universalism and particularism are used as opposite ideal types.

The EU guarantees the free movement of persons. The citizens of the EU Member States have the right to move freely without barriers within the EU borders and this result in an integration of the peoples in Europe. The integration result in several international family relationships. It is not unusual in the present situation that families have international relations. For example, spouses in a married couple may have different nationality.

The Swedish group contribution rules do not include a right to deduction for cross-border group contributions unless the receiving company is taxable in Sweden. There has been much discussion regarding whether the rules are compatible with EC law. On 11 March 2009 the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court ruled ten cases concerning the right to deduction for cross-border group contributions. In three of these judgments deduction for a group contribution from a Swedish parent company to a foreign subsidiary within the EEA was allowed, despite that the subsidiary was not taxable in Sweden. The main purpose of this master thesis is to analyse whether the interpretation of the Supreme Administrative Court concerning the right to deduction for cross-border group contributions is compatible with EC law.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the law regarding gross violations of women and its application in the Swedish legal system. We have investigated how the legal system takes into account a holistic perspective of the vulnerable situation of women in the investigation and assessment and the extent to which psychological violence in the form of verbal abuse, threats and harassment attention. We also wanted to find out how the law's design may contribute to difficulties in the implementation and interpretation of it. In this study, we used a qualitative research approach when we decided to conduct an interview with a police officer and a textual analysis of four cases from the district court. Interview questions were semi-structured in order to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon.

Despite the fact that the issue has been discussed for several decades, there are still no rules in Sweden mandating political parties and candidates to disclose received donations. Because of this lack of transparency, Sweden is not fulfilling some of its international obligations and has fallen behind in the international trend to increase the transparency of election campaign finance. The lack of disclosure rules in Sweden has led to extensive criticism, most notably from the Council of Europe´s group of states against corruption, Greco, who criticized Sweden in light of the guidelines on the subject from the Council of Europe. At this writing, a new proposal for disclosure rules is being prepared at the Department of Justice, DoJ. The proposal is to be presented in spring 2013.

The purpose of the essay is to analyze the welfare state from a gender perspective. Further, the paper analyzes and critically examines three different normative solutions provided by Irish Marion Young, Nancy Fraser and Jürgen Habermas for the realization of a welfare state that includes women.Habermas argues that the welfare state has created a situation of dependency and state paternalism which reduces both individual and collective self-determination. Young follows Habermas? argument. She argues for a political climate where justice is reduced to the distribution of material goods rather than the elimination of underlying relations of domination and gender specific patterns.