Title: Det nya Ryssland - En inblick over Rysslands utrikespolitik under 2000-taletAuthor: Tim Balder and Jens KindhLinnaeus UniversityDepartment of Political ScienceAutumn term 2011The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how the Russian foreign policy is, how it is conducted and how it may develop in the future. To do that, we are going to try to answer the following questions:What characterizes Russia's official foreign policy?What theories are there for the Russian foreign policy?How can the various theories explain the Russian foreign policy actions at the international level?Our theory is to try explaining how the Russian foreign policy is continuing its development during the 21st century through three theories known as the Western liberalism, Pragmatic nationalism and Fundamental nationalism. Furthermore, to explain Russia's foreign policy and their behaviour, we are going to use the two foreign policy doctrines from 2000 and 2008. In addition, books and articles will also be used to explain how Russia's foreign policy is conducted and developed..

With this essay, I want to examine the image of Russians in the Swedish rural press during the second half of the 19th century, how rusophobia appeared in Swedish rural press and how the image of Russians changed during this time. To find this out, I set these questions:  ? How was Russians and Russia portrayed in the Swedish rural press? ? Did the view of Russians change during this time?The essay is written so that I have interpreted my empirical material to do a discourse analysis in which I analyse different articles that have been written about Russia and Russians in a stereotypical way. The source material used in the thesis comes from 41 news articles; the bulk of the source material comes from newspapers that were published during the late 19th century.Rural press reporting on Russia and Russians were in the second half of the 19th century mostly negative. Of the 41 articles that were examined it was found that about half were negative, less than one-sixth were positive, while about a third were neutral.The reason that many of the articles were negative has to do with Sweden's shared history with Russia, with many wars and territorial losses.

Title: Det nya Ryssland - En inblick over Rysslands utrikespolitik under 2000-taletAuthor: Tim Balder and Jens KindhLinnaeus UniversityDepartment of Political ScienceAutumn term 2011The purpose of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of how the Russian foreign policy is, how it is conducted and how it may develop in the future. To do that, we are going to try to answer the following questions:What characterizes Russia's official foreign policy?What theories are there for the Russian foreign policy?How can the various theories explain the Russian foreign policy actions at the international level?Our theory is to try explaining how the Russian foreign policy is continuing its development during the 21st century through three theories known as the Western liberalism, Pragmatic nationalism and Fundamental nationalism. Furthermore, to explain Russia's foreign policy and their behaviour, we are going to use the two foreign policy doctrines from 2000 and 2008. In addition, books and articles will also be used to explain how Russia's foreign policy is conducted and developed..

The Swedish security policy has changed from stressing neutrality to embrace co-operation within the EU and other organisations. New threats like terrorism, boarder-crossing criminality and natural disasters require new ways to deal with this type of problems to protect the society. Since the beginning of 21st century the high Russian economic growth has made it possible for the country to play an increasingly role as a superpower on the international political stage. In the same time the democratic development has been replaced by an autocratic rule which has obstructed the Russian- European relations. From a Swedish security policy view the Russian political development is of importance and the picture of Russian as a threat has changed from 1996 to 2008/09.

The purpose of this study was to examine and explain Sweden?s defence and security policy during the twenty-first century. The method that was used in this research was a case study. The material that was used were government documents focusing on this area of policy, and numerous books concerning the theoretical perspectives on international relations and defence security policy. The study is of an explaining art and the analysis explains Sweden?s security and defence policy during the twenty-first century. The analysis explains this by testing it against a liberal and a realist view on international relations. The conclusion of the study is that Sweden?s defence and security policy has been liberal during this time period ? and still is.

When the Soviet union collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, a democratization began to develop. During the Jeltsin years, democracy in Russia was developing steadily, but since Putin became president at the turn of the century it has started to move back towards authoritarian rule. The purpose of this study is to explore the reasons for why the democracy in Russia never became consolidated and to understand why the country again has moved towards an authoritarian rule, like the one during the Soviet union.In order to fulfill the aim of this study, two theories were used. These were Linz and Stepan's consolidation theory, about the five arenas that have to be developed, and Samuel P. Huntington's theory about authoritarian nostalgia.

I have investigated the political culture of post-communist Russia. For a long time it has been assumed that, the history is of great importance in shaping the political culture. I wanted to find out if this was true, I chose to study the political culture of Russia. How great effects had the autocratically legacy of Soviet Union in the democratisation of Russia? My thesis show that the role of history isn't of such great importance, instead it's the Russian state that has had the greatest possibility of shaping the political culture of Russia but it failed.

The current planning philosophy is based on a political utopic modernism founded during the first part of the 20th century. The focus is, in planning a defined area, to maximize the internal efficiency and to create a competitivesociety. During the latter part of the former century globalization changed the context, thus creating the need for a new way of approaching physical planning. This paper shows that the historical and philosophicalmetaphor of flow can be applied to meet the demands in the global city. It also shows how the edge, as where interaction takes place, is an important part of the content that has to be defined.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the development on the Swedish book market for the beginning of the 21st century. During the 21st century a lot of things have happened on the Swedish market for library books. Twenty years ago in reality only one company existed that could deliver books with the demanded equipment to the libraries, but in year 2010 there are four companies offering the same service. Other news during this time is bookshops on internet. We found this development interesting and therefore decided to contact the four companies as well as six libraries to find out what they thought of the new situation.

This thesis sets out to investigate three questions, first, how the Belarusian democratization process has progressed since the country?s independence in 1991 to the year of 2006. Second, how the relationship between Russia and Belarus has progressed during this time and third, if and how Russia has affected the democratization process. The study has been conducted through qualitative method, mainly using books and articles as sources of information. It has been found that the democratization process in Belarus has evolved in a negative direction ever since the presidential election of 1994.

This thesis analyzes contemporary Swedish discourse on Russia, i.e. the ways Russia and Russians are perceived in Sweden today. After a summary of historical Western and Swedish perceptions of Russia, and a discussion about the treatment of these tensions within modern research, contemporary Swedish discourse is reconstructed based upon analytical articles in three major newspapers during the period 1992-2007. It is argued that the prevailing image of Russia contains the reproduction of old stereotypes and prejudices. The five major representations of Russia in contemporary Swedish discourse are: non-Western, unreliable, authoritarian, threatening and eternal, with the last one being a meta-representation functioning both as a representation of its own and a mechanism for the reification of the others.

The subject of religion in Swedish schools is the single most talked about topic in the curriculum. One explanation could be that it is the oldest subject in Swedish schools and the topic has undergone the biggest change through time. This process of change has been anything but undebated. The subject of religion within schools has met debates through almost its entire history, partly from the state and from the church, but also from the teachers and the students. Debates concerning the existence of Christianity in Swedish schools as well as the Swedish traditions constantly reoccur in today?s government debates and various media but in different versions.

Disney is one of the largest media companies in the world. They have been critizied for portrayting men, women and love relationships with stereotypical behaviours and attributes. This may lead to negative effects on childrens and adolescents perception of reality. The purpose of this study was to investigate how Disney portrays the dynamic between the characters within the love relationship in their movies launched in the 21st century. This study has examined four movies released in the 21st century containing a love relationship between a man and a woman.

Emmanuel Lévinas is one of the great ethics in the 20th century. His contribution to the philosophical discourse defies our thinking and behavior in a revolutionary way. He dismisses every categorization, every tematization, every moral based on an analytical reflection and compels us with an ethics that demands us not only to think, but to act and be responsible. The 21st century?s emphasis of the individual, globalization, plurality and the questioning of authorities has created new challenges for the individual who sees herself as the nave of morality.

The transition from a planned economy to a market economy was initiated in Russia in the beginning of the 90s. The three components: privatization, liberalization and stabilization constitute the trinity of the transition theory. This thesis has its focus on the privatization, that also can be referred to as a piratization of Russia. The purpose of the thesis is to explain what went wrong with the privatization, and also why it went wrong. A few men, called oligarchs, got their hands on great wealth which has lead to an abuse of power.