Bortom historien slut ? Beyond the end of historyAccording to Robert Dahl there are seven criteria that have to be fulfilled in order for a state to be democratic. Dahl also states that there are several factors that effect the development of democracy. In today?s world it is mostly developing countries that have failed to bring about democratic changes.

The study aims to investigate student participation as a tool for democratic development in secondary school from a student perspective. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the school's work with student participation in formal and informal contexts are also investigated, with basis in the teaching structure. The results are based on interviews conducted with students who all attend the same class in their last year of high school. Subsequently, an analysis is made based mainly on three different theories: democracy, curricula and sociocultural theory. The result shows that students feel that they are able to practice student participation but the amount of influence they get differs between individuals depending on devotion and commitment.

Studies have shown that politicians are significantly more likely to become victims of violent crime than other citizens in Sweden. In fact increasing political rank and engagement are directly proportionate to increased risk for violence. Threat towards politicians is not only dangerous to the individuals involved but also to the democratic system as a whole.Political scientists the world over have done a lot of research on democracy, but I have been unable to find a single method or theory that examines how violence, threat and harassment affect political leaders and democratic systems.The aim of this study is to expand the existing model made by Tommy Möller, professor in political science. In his model he presents 11 factors that affect political leaders ability to act. My aim is to develop his model by adding a 12 th factor ?violence, threat and harassment?.

My big interest in sports was what shaped my choice of subject for the essay. The purpose of this study has been to explore the social meaning of team sports for functionally impaired persons. In order to fulfil the purpose of the essay I formed following questions: How do the actives experience their participation in team sports? And how important is the social intercourse in team sports to the individual welfare? The methods I?ve used have been qualitative with an ethnographic approach. I have used participant observations and field interviews to gather my empirical material.

Följande studie undersöker i vilken utsträckning parterna i trepartsförhållandet Upsala Nya Tidning, annonsör och läsare har överensstämmande åsikter om vad som är viktigt i relationen, samt hur väl de känner till varandras uppfattningar. Vi väljer att studera förhållandet ur ett trepartsperspektiv då de mer traditionella tvåpartsförhållandena inte är tillräckliga för att beskriva den komplexa verkligheten. Studien utgår från UNT:s printupplaga, men skildrar även skillnader mellan den och webbupplagan. Ett representativt urval av varje part tillfrågades via en enkätundersökning vad de själva tycker är viktigt och vad de uppfattar är viktigt för övriga parter. Resultatet visar på att parterna inte har överensstämmande åsikter om vad som är betydelsefullt i relationen.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine and analyze why, in the case of Afghanistan, the government chose to establish a highly centralized political system, when from a democratic standpoint a less centralized system would be preferable.The time period that is examined span from 2001 when the so-called Bonn-Accord was signed, to the parliamentary elections held in 2005, a period often referred to as the Bonn-process.The theoretical framework examines both the complex relations between federalism and democracy, as well as the relation between federalism and the role of existent ethnic minorities. The theoretical framework is then used in order to explain why it would be problematic to create a federal system in Afghanistan under the present circumstances.The conclusions that can be drawn are the following: In case of the republic Afghanistan the creation and implementation of a highly centralized political system was the only possible way for the government to be able to cope and practically deal with the problems of existent ethnic antagonism and regional warlords in order to create a stable political situation in the country..

The aim with this Master's thesis is to study the debate that takes place in the local community when a public library branch is threatened by closedown through the local newspapers. Through this it is our aim to understand why the debate takes place, and why so many people gets concerned with it. By relating this debate to contemporary research of library- and information science, and the discussion in three major Swedish library journals, we have found the answers to these questions. By studying the debate, we found six subjects that where essential for this study. These were Politics and economics, Urban and rural districts, Democracy and accessibility, The service of the library, The meeting place and To replace a closed down library.

This study analyses social age as a phenomenon and if unaccompanied refugee children has a social age that, according to the Swedish culture, do not correspond with their biological age and if so is, the reason for that. Furthermore, our study has discussed the potential consequences of the effects for the unaccompanied refugee children and the social age when interacting with Swedish society. According to our study, the social age is effected by other factors besides cultural norms, values and role expectations that a society has on a specific biological age. The results in this study shows that social age is a vital component to someone?s identity.

Bakgrund:I den svenska skolan har det under en längre tid funnits olika pedagogiska, beslutsbaserade rollspel i undervisningen. Nu har skolan digitaliserats, vilket har öppnat upp för datorspel i undervisningen, främst inom matematik och språkliga ämnen. Samhällskunskapen är ett mer komplext ämne att reproducera och därför har inte dataspel i undervisningen använts i lika stor utsträckning. I och med den tekniska utvecklingen, kan spel återskapa mer komplexa företeelser och har därför möjligheten att inkluderas i fler skolämnen än tidigare. Spelindustrin är idag i en position, grafiskt och tekniskt, där det går att simulera hela länder, historiska händelser och hela ekonomier med varierande komplexitet.

Social phobia is a fear which limits a person's capabilities in daily situations. The fear can be so strong that a person can distance themselves from all social situations, for example education, marriage, sports activities etc. The purpose of this study is to discover whether there are any correlations between social fear and choice of educational program, between social fear and sex, and between social fear and Internet use. Questionnaires were administered to 80 upper secondary pupils. Each questionnaire answer was assigned a certain score, which was then coded in SPSS, the highest scores corresponding to highest degrees of shyness.

The aim of this study was to examine if an organisation that strives for democracy and participation, also possess an open information culture. This study deals with the information culture in a social movement organisation, Attac Gothenburg. To achieve the aim, following questions were asked: What is the organisation culture like, is it open or closed? What is the information culture like, is it open or closed? What is the information culture like, in relation to the identity of the organisation? The focus has been put on earlier research in social movements, organisation and information culture. In this qualitative study I have collected material mainly from interviews.

The purpose of our study is to get more knowledge about how moral dilemmas affect social workers in their work. This because we find that a big part of social work involves ethic reflections and that is why we find it important for social workers to have knowledge about how they should and can think and act in these situations. Ethic statements exist for social workers to use in their work but we haven?t found any guidelines for concrete situations and that?s why we decided to study this area. Questions we want to answer are how do the social workers define moral dilemmas in social work? How do the social workers deal with moral dilemmas in their work? How do moral dilemmas affect social workers in their work? This is a qualitative study with interviews from seven social workers from one social service office although they are from different units.

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to examine how the population living in Christiania considers their residential area in relation to the surrounding society, and why you as an individual choose to live there. We have used the qualitative method and we have performed interviews with a total of six persons. We have used Tönnies two notions regarding gemeinschaft and gesellschaft, and Goffmans theory about stigma. We choose these theories because we thought that they were most relevant for our study. Our question at issue is: Why does a person seek to live in an alternative society, with different norms in comparison to the majority society? Through our interview persons we learned their stories and their opinions considering their residential area and we concluded that Christiania differs from the remaining society in several ways.

In Sweden the social assistance from a historical perspective, has been a part of the social legislation, since the 18th century. In that time called poor relief. Through the centuries this has established the social assistance we have today. With focus on the child, we have attempted to illustrate how the social workers consider the child perspective when they are dealing with the social assistance. We wanted to get a view of how the social worker reasons about needs the children have and how they can see that the benefit has been provided for.

This essay constitutes a qualitative case study about democratization theory and the middle class in Russia. This is a very important case to study, especially because of the geographic position of the country as well as the economic importance Russia has as a part of the G8. In the essay the author seeks to answer the question whether the lack of a significant middle class in Russia can be a part of the explanation to the absence of a well functioning democracy in the country. Several democratization theories are presented. The most important being Ruth Berins Collier's theories about ins and outs plus the elite- or working class as the initiator of democratization processes.