The purpose of this study was to analyse the concept of empowerment and its meaning in the political document "En Förnyad Folkhälsopolitik" from the present Swedish government, containing guidelines and politics in the area of public health. The underlying question was if it could be considered as representative for some kind of general "empowerment approach" since the concept is central to the very definition of social work by the International Federation of Social Workers IFSW and International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW).By comparing its definition and consequences in the document with a historical review of different contexts of empowerment the conclusion was made that such a common approach doesn´t exist at all. The meaning of empowerment in the central document showed some similarities with the "northamerican" version of the concept represented by the social scientist Charles Murray, which is just one of the political meanings of empowerment. Alternative ways of understanding the concept was also presented such as being a tool of a constant conflict between central political principles or as a fashionable but not important word. Another alternative was to consider it a means of power through witch different political discourses tries to dominate the world..

Problem statement and purpose:The purpose of this study was to analyze in what way first-time voters chose to take part of political information. The questions we aimed to answer was how first-time voters use media and other information channels for political purposes, what importance and trust the first-time voters give the different information channels and finally which indicators there is for that structural or individual factors affect the media consumption and political interest.Method and material:We did interviews with twelve 18 years old first-time voters from six different high school programs in Sundsvall, Sweden.Results:The study showed that the premier source of political information were traditional news media, in particular the debates on TV. It?s also in the debates the first-time voter?s trust the most. Even though the social medias are constantly present in their everyday life and even though the first-time voters believe the social medias have potential for engaging young people politically, the possibilities are only taken in advantage by people who are already politically interested.

Aims: The aim of this study is to describe how youth?s political exclusion is constructed as asocial problem. This is done through a study of a project which aim is to engage young peoplein politics.Method and theory: By interviewing the project?s manager and developer as well as eightparticipating young people different constructions of the problem of youth political exclusionhas been analyzed using the social constructionist perspective on social problems.Findings: The dominant perspective found in the empirical material includes framing youngpeople?s lack of political knowledge and self-confidence as the reason for their politicalexclusion. Even though the Youth Board (ungdomsstyrelsen) in Sweden officially views allyoung people as a resource, when youth politics are implemented through projects, this is notthe view that young people meet.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay has been to gain a greater understanding and clarify how an arena can create value within place marketing and development of a place brand. This will be achieved through a description of which values an arena causes in the surrounding areas and an understanding of how these values can be interpreted through the place brand. We decided to base our study according to the following two questions:1. What are the underlying reasons why there has been such a big trend with arena project?2.

The increasing significance of social economy as a concept is linked to general global processes such as the crisis of the welfare state, neoliberal globalization, anti-bureaucracy tendencies and decentralization, but also to a growing political interest in human rights and social development. In Sweden the idea of the social economy generates wide support within civil society as well as within the government and across party political boundaries. Furthermore, what is problematic in this context is the fact that the discussions on the subject tend to be relatively uncritical and often it seems as if though the expansion itself is the main objective. The emphasis on cooperation and the third sector in terms of welfare production implies a set of risks in relation to state responsibility, democracy and the autonomy of civil society. This paper aims to explore those risks and how they can be dealt with within the Swedish context..

Participation of the people is essential for a democracy's vitality and survival. In this study we focus on the individual as an active participant in the traditional political arena and beyond its sphere into the society as a whole. The first part of the study has a normative aim. Firstly we examine why political participation is essential for democracy, and especially the ideal of representative democracy and the restricted passive participation of its citizens in comparison to the ideal of participatory democracy and its ideal of an active participant in all aspects of society. An ideal participant is drawn up to set the course for the empirical part of the study.

Is the Muslim Brotherhood a political force that can be able to push Egyptian society in to the process of democratization? We think that the answer to that question is yes, even though the movement clearly state that their main aim to create a democratic state, but based upon the Islamic shari?ah-laws. In this paper, we examine if the Brotherhoods? political platforms and ideas are compatible with the classic ideas of how a democratic state should be. We discuss Robert A.

ProblemArena Personal har upplevt att deras rekryteringstjänst inte används isamma utsträckning som deras bemanningstjänst. Detta trots att deanser sig kunna erbjuda en bra tjänst inom detta område. ArenaPersonal vet inte säkert vad orsaken till detta är och vill därför ha svar på problemet. Orsaken till ovissheten grundar sig i att de inte har tillräckligt med kunskap om hur kunderna uppfattar dem.SyfteUppsatsen syfte är att utvärdera hur kunderna upplever ArenaPersonal. Utifrån undersökningens resultat ges Arena Personal enfördjupad inblick i de områden som upplevs som bra och i de områdensom upplevs som sämre samt svar på varför kunderna inte använderrekrytering i samma utsträckning som bemanning.TillvägagångssättIntervjuer med fyra av Arena Personals kunder genomfördes ochsammanställdes för att få en bild av hur de uppfattade Arena Personal.Resultatet av de viktigaste positiva och negativa aspekterna av ArenaPersonal presenterades utifrån de fyra områden som undersökningenutgick ifrån.

This thesis focuses on the problems involving immigrants and their voting behaviour in Sweden. We presuppose that immigrants vote in a far less extent than Swedish citizen according to general statistics. We try to explain and give solutions to this problem. To our help we use both integration theory focusing on multiculturalism and electoral participation theories.Starting off in these two theories, we have further analyzed a number of policies issued to solve the participation dilemma. The policies were issued in order to elevate the socio-economic standards, inform citizens and close the distance between voters and politicians.Our results show that what work best is long term ventures aiming at integrating immigrants to the Swedish society.

The North-American sociologist Michael Lipsky has characterized social workers as street-level bureaucrats with a substantial discretion in the relationship between the welfare state and its citizens. Within Lipsky´s theoretical framework social workers appear as a powerful group that socializes the citizens to uphold certain expectations towards the welfare state and its (re)distributional programs. From this point of view, it is important to learn more about social workers and the attitudes they express towards the welfare state. The aim of this study is to analyze how the welfare-political attitudes of future social workers are affected by their social background (e.g. class background and ancestral homeland).

This thesis discusses the Swedish drug policy and its principle of prohibition. In the world of today there is an ongoing discussion about prohibition and the concept of harm reduction. This thesis is an analysis of Swedish drug policy and an investigation as to whether the prohibition concept is in a state of decline. It tries to answer the question; is the Swedish drug policy moving away from its prohibition principle towards a harm reduction principle? The recent debate, articles, documents and earlier research has been analyzed in order to find answers to my questions.

This thesis studies how the Swedish government articulates social exclusion within the spring budget of 2007. Through a discourse theoretical approach, inspired by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the empirical findings are reconstructed through the nodal point of labour and two chains of equivalence, based upon the duality between employment and unemployment. By viewing social exclusion as a phenomenon concerning discourse, identity and politics, this duality forms the basis of a deconstructive and hegemonic analysis.I argue that the term social exclusion is a powerful and flexible political concept in that it obscures ideological assumptions and objectives as well as draws attention away from alternative social concepts. Throughout the thesis social exclusion is stressed as a social category constituting the relation between individual and society. Hence I argue that it is of vital importance that the values underlying its usage are made explicit and that social exclusion as a floating signifier is made an object of academic analysis..

This essay deals with the same task that utilitarians have tried to solve for a long time, what is happiness? In the eighteenth-century utilitarians suggested that happiness should be the base for social political decisions. But the lack of definition disposed so that GDP became the measurement of happiness, which proved to be wrong when the unhappiness continued to increase. More than two hundred years later scientists came up with a new definition of happiness and new ways to measure it. And during the last decade economists have taken the discussion to a higher level.So once again we?re dealing with the same old issue, if happiness ought to be the base of social political decisions.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay has been to gain a greater understanding and clarify how an arena can create value within place marketing and development of a place brand. This will be achieved through a description of which values an arena causes in the surrounding areas and an understanding of how these values can be interpreted through the place brand. We decided to base our study according to the following two questions:1. What are the underlying reasons why there has been such a big trend with arena project?2.

AbstractThe purpose with this essay has been to gain a greater understanding and clarify how an arena can create value within place marketing and development of a place brand. This will be achieved through a description of which values an arena causes in the surrounding areas and an understanding of how these values can be interpreted through the place brand. We decided to base our study according to the following two questions:1. What are the underlying reasons why there has been such a big trend with arena project?2.