The purpose of this study was to examine divergences in assessments of social assistance in one big and one small social welfare office in the municipalities of Malmö. To examine this we used a qualitative method. We held interviews with social workers and their superiors. At the end of the interviews with the social workers we presented two vignettes, describing different cases of first time applications of social assistance. The social workers was asked to assess whether the application should be granted or not, and motivate their decisions.

The aim of this essay is to analyze how students are constituted as subjects in local curricula. The theoretical perspective is grounded in Michel Foucault?s notion of governmentality and power/knowledge and his critique of a sovereign subject. From this theoretical perspective I use Foucault?s concept of formation of objects and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe?s idea of subject positioning as tools for a discourse analysis.

The concept of the dynamic region has become a more prospering thought in the era of globalisation. This concerns in particular, cross border regions ? well-integrated territorial regions crossing more than one nation. In this paper I examine the development from a critical perspective and I map the democratic pitfalls of new territorial political constructions across national borders. The empirical analysis is a case report taken from the Öresund region, a cross border region between Sweden and Denmark.

In 1998 a new regional development policy was introduced by the Swedish government. A central feature in the policy was the formation of partnerships at the regional level. The partnerships were meant to consist of local and regional stakeholders, representing a great variety of interests, who would collaborate in order to improve regional development. The new policy was promoted, besides being more efficient, as a way to broaden political participation and to break male-dominated structures.This thesis discusses whether the regional partnership actually favours ?women's interests?, in terms of how the relationship of power between women and men is constituted by the model.

Fenomenet med kvinnliga självmordsbombare är en relativt ny företeelse. De senaste åren har det dock visat sig bli allt vanligare i till exempel Ryssland och mellanöstern. Media utformar rapporteringen kring kvinnliga respektive manliga självmordsbombare olika. Diskursen är låst till uppfattningen om att mannen är norm och att det finns olika anledningar till varför kvinnor jämfört med män väljer att använda sina liv som vapen. Till exempel framhålls ofta en kvinnliga självmordsbombares skäl till handlingen som personliga.

This comparative linguistic textstudy focuses on the relationship between a newspapers own outspoken political standpoint and it´s ambition of being an unbiased provider of objective information. This connection becomes particulary interestering in times of election when a newspapers role as provider of information is of great importance for the citizens. When a newspaper reports an event to the public, the reporter always has to choose from a small selection of possible linguistic forms when representing the story. Through linguistic analysis of these forms we can see that the final choice is often not a complete arbitrary one. We compared two daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Dala-Demokraten, that stod on opposite sides in the Swedish EMU-elections 2003.

The aim of this thesis is to study why Swedish authorities do organizational changes. Two organizations are analyzed; The Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket) and the National Statistics Office of Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån). A qualitative method, consisting mainly of interviews with key officials, is employed to study two aspects of organizational change: first, the main reasons for changing the organization and, second, how the process that preceded the actual change was carried out. Furthermore, two different theoretical perspectives are used to construct a basis for the analysis. One of the perspectives assumes a social constructivist approach, while the other is rationalistic inspired.

The main purpose of this essay was to study how the social service and the lawcourt have implemented the UN Convention on the Right of the Child, particularly incorporating the childs best interest in social services, child welfare investigations and the lawcourts judgement. We considered how the needs of the child, and the will and view of the child was documented. Also how the parents capacity and the environment factors, were documented in the social services investigations and the lawcourts judgement. The study was based both as a literature study and a document analysis. We analysed ten child welfare investigations from a social service office and their belonging lawcourt judgements.Our conclusion of the study is that the child is in focus both in the investigations and in judgement.

AbstractIn the literature on multiculturalism and group rights there is a strong tradition that sees diversity as something directly paradoxal to unity. In this tradition, scholars put forward a view of multiculturalism as a divisive and exclusionary process which breaks down the cohesion and unity of society. Related to this notion is that of a neutral and universally valid frame of reference in which political dilemmas can be solved; for example a neutral civil sphere where the ?true essence? of society lies. In this essay I attempt to criticise these two notions.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the politics and activities of the Social Democratic students´ association Spartakus. Their relationships and political and ideological differences towards the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) and the remaining parts of the Social Democratic youth organisation (SSU) in Linköping during 1969-1971 are examined. To fulfil this aim I have studied relevant literature and interviewed people who were active in Spartakus, as well as people from SSU and SAP in the municipal during the period. I have also studied written material produced by the students´ association itself during the period. The theoretical frame of reference consists of Dahl´s theory on a democratic political order, and party theories like the mass party theory of Duverger, theories from Sjöblom, Panebianco, Lipset and Tingsten and also Gidlund&Möller´s theory about different kinds of party members.

In recent years the concern about the future of the European Union and itssupposed lack of democracy, efficiency and legitimacy has increased. Thisconcern has resulted in extensive debates and the establishment of a conventionwith the task to create a draft treaty for a European Constitution.The aim of this essay is to study how the three theoretical concepts,democracy, efficiency and legitimacy, have been described and used in the debateabout the future of the European Union. My main interest is to see how theseconcepts are described in a debate regarding a political system that goes beyondthe borders of the nation-state. I have made a comparative textual analysis of thedebates taken place in Sweden and Spain during a period of over two years. Ihave, for instance, found out that openness and clearness have a prominentposition as democratic values together with equality and justice (in Spain) and theinstitution of accountability (in Sweden).

The purpose of this thesis is to examine how the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, is described in Swedish mass media. The research question of the paper is "How was president Hugo Chávez portrayed in Swedish newspapers in the 2004 Venezuelan referendum?". The answer of this question provides information about how the mass media form the image of current political events which is an important aspect of power. The applied method and theory in the study is the critical discourse analysis.

In scientific investigations on how organizations can learn from their mistakes the perspective is usually that of the social engineer; the object is to prevent human errors through modeling the system in a certain way. The aim of this paper is to explore the learning process from a different standpoint than those usually applied in organizational learning and error theory. By studying the learning process in Swedish health care I seek to discover how theoretical presumptions affect the outcome in terms of what we actually learn. The theoretical framework draws on two major discussions in contemporary political science; the question of structure and agency and the question of whether to focus on formal or informal structures when explaining organizational behavior.The investigation shows that Swedish health care tend to understand human errors as a result of formal organizational structure. Such a view leads to insufficient explanations to why errors occur but is useful in producing preventative measures.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att påvisa de likheter som finns mellan det kommunistiska KPML(r)/RKU och det nazistiska NSF i deras kritik mot den representativa demokratin. Uppsatsen bygger på en komparativ ideologianalys. materialet består av artiklar, rapporter och partiprogram som publicerats på Internet. I teoriavsnittet stödjer jag mig på Dahls och Lipsets problematiseringar av fenomenet demokrati- extremism och relationen mellan olika typer av extremism. Undersökningen visar att de nutida "vänster"- och "högerextremisterna" har mer gemensamt än vad som kan anas.

This is an essay in Swedish on the subject of democracy and demonstrations of collective violence. The study is based on a conflict between the youth-house movement in Copenhagen and the state of Denmark - the city of Copenhagen. The focus is over the period December 2006 until January 2008 with reflection on the political movement around the youth-house from the 80's and onwards. This political movement roots back to the late 60's and especially the squatting movement, the BZ, of Europe which had a strong period in Denmark both in the 60's and the 80's. There is also a strong connection to other political movements of anti-fascism, anti-globalisation, queer activism and equal rights.