15th of December 2005 was a historical day for the Iraqi people when they could vote for the first time in a free referendum for the draft of the new constitution. The result showed that 79% accepted it. The Iraqi constitution has been criticized by many for its Islamic ascendancy. By giving Islam the role as the source for legislation, will make the situation worse for the Iraqi women, so it has been said.My aim with this Master thesis is not to evaluate weather or not Islam as a religion will undermine women's roll in the society. My ambition is rather to examine the constitution in order to see which kind of theory of citizenship it is inspired from and how will it affect the situation of the Iraqi women.

Det organiserade våldet i Colombia har på senare år förändrat karaktär och med utgångspunkt i den krigs- och konfliktteoretiska debatten skulle många fråga sig om denna förändring är så fundamental att det går att tala om en förändring av det organiserade våldets grundläggande logik. Det är just denna undran som har legat till grund för genomförandet av vår studie. Med utgångspunkt i de mest inflytelserika teoriernas grundläggande ståndpunkter har vi gjort en uppdelning vilket gör det möjligt att pröva om denna förändring har skett. I Colombias fall har det visat sig att landets integration i globaliseringsprocessen har förändrat de politiska och ekonomiska strukturer som omsluter den väpnade konflikten. Samtidigt förblir kampen om den statliga makten central för konfliktens utveckling.

In this thesis we have tried to show the problems that the categorisation of ?norrlänningar? generates. We have also tried to describe what the stereotypes of ?norrlänningar? are by examining what people say on web logs. The method we have used to find the stereotypes in our empirical material is the discourse analyse.

Uppsatsens frågeställning är: På vilket sätt kan demokratisering fungera som konfliktlösningsmekanism efter folkmordet i Rwanda?Folkmordet i Rwanda kan ses i ljuset av att det var ett inbördeskrig med etniska grunder. För att lösa konflikter av denna typ driver vi tesen att demokratisering är den konfliktlösningsmekanism som är mest lämpad på sikt. Vi applicerar teorier från konfliktlösning och demokratisering, och kombinerar dessa för att nå svar på vår frågeställning. Consociationalteorin är vår huvudsakliga teori, då den är utvecklad för etniskt splittrade samhällen.

Varför vann Hamas valet? Valresultatet som blivit så uppmärksammat och ifrågasatt av omvärlden vill vi undersöka. Vårt syfte är att hitta en förklaring till varför det palestinska folket röstade på ett av omvärlden terrorstämplat parti. I vår undersökning utgår vi från fyra olika väljarteorier som kan härledas till den politiska kontexten. Teorierna förklarar valresultat utifrån 1) ideologisk närhet 2) politisk agenda 3) tydlighet i kommunikation av ståndpunkter 4) partiernas kompetens.

The aim of this thesis has been to investigate women's experience of the Methadone maintenance treatment and what help they believe they need to be able to recover and to improve their social life and whether the medical- and social workers share the similar view.Our method of investigation has been qualitative interviews with four women in the program, two nurses and a counsellor at the methadone clinic and two social workers, who have female clients in the program.The questions at issue were:* how did the women describe their life situation during treatment, compared to the situation they had while they were addicted to narcotics,* did the women experience that the treatment they get in the methadone maintenance program is giving them a better social life situation,* did the employees at the clinic and at the social office share the similar view about the treatments as the female patients?Main problems seemed to be; meeting new non-addictive friends and finding something to do. We could se that, in different ways, they need more support. It wasn't always clear to the people who work with them whose responsibility it was, depending on workplace and/or personality..

In order to fully grasp the phenomena 'City' we must understand its political structure as an integrated part of its physical structure and vice versa. This thesis focuses on one crucial element of the City, the public space, and discusses it in relation to the public realm, or sphere, of the City. The aim is to see if it is possible to conceive public space as a spatial dimension of power, and if so, how to analyse this. With the help of the theoretical tool of two ideal types of the configuration of public space, "The city as civic public life" and "The city as authoritarian control" an empirical study is carried out on the case of Prishtina, capital of Kosovo.Conclusions made are that function and use of a city's public spaces can be understood in relation to changes in the political climate of the society. Furthermore, a void in the asset of concepts offered by the ideal types is found ? and therefore also need for new concepts to describe and understand a public space undergoing a dynamic transformation, as being a part of a city in political transition..

In this thesis we have tried to answer the question of whether or not the peaceorganizations working in Israel and Palestine have an impact. We have answered the question by analyzing six different organizations; three who work with children and the other three with women issues. The analysis contains a case study of each organization and then a comparison between the two groups. This study is built on theories about; grassroots organizations, women in organizations and intergroup communication. Our conclusions in this thesis show that there are some similarities between the groups as well as there are differences.

BACKGROUND: Today?s societal changes, including high rate of change and increasing information flows, are increasing the demand on the individual mental capacity. It becomes increasingly difficult to analytically process all the different dilemmas and everyday decisions as individuals have a limited mental capacity available to make these decisions. Thus, it has been suggested that ego-depleted relies more heavily on intuition, which is less burdensome, when making decision. However little is known about to what extent intuitive decisions differ from analytic.

In this thesis I examine the development and expansion of judicial power in Sweden. The concept of judicial review is defined and related to democratic theory, and the various forms of judicial review in use in Sweden are explained. The main focus is on the political and scientific discussion concerning judicial review since the mid 1970s. It is shown that judicial review so far has been used only to a limited extent and that the number of court cases has remained quite stable over time. The main cause of judicialization seems to be the supremacy of EU law following the Swedish EU membership in 1995 and the inclusion of the European Convention on Human Rights into Swedish law.

Bolivia is a multiethnic country where the indigenous people constitute the majority of the population. Despite two decades of attempts to take the democracy further is its foundation more volatile than ever. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine if exclusion is taken place in Bolivia from year 1982 until today and if so in which way political exclusion constitute problems of democracy in Bolivia. The answer depends on the understanding of democracy used in the analysis. In this thesis I use theories of process-, participation- and deliberative democracy.

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.

Over the past few years the Åland islands have attracted growing internationalattention as an example of how to successfully secure the position of a minorityregion, and in the current situation the government of Åland has an intention toextend the efforts of spreading the example of Åland. The purpose of this essay isto shed light on the political discussion about the example of Åland, andinvestigate the underlying political reasons for emphasizing the example of Ålandinternationally. Through interviews with leading politicians on Åland I analyzeÅland as a norm entrepreneur. The research shows that besides altruism, selfinterestis a factor behind emphasizing the example of Åland. The essay showsthat the theory of norm entrepreneurship also can be applied on an autonomousarea, but instead of influencing international organizations themselves, theautonomous area use norm entrepreneurship as a tool for influencing domesticpolitics..

The purpose of this essay was to analyze the management and steering of the social welfare service. The objective was specifically to examine how the leaders approach their position as managers of the social welfare service, and also how they approach their way of steering. The social welfare service acts under political decisions, but the management interpret and transform these decisions into actions. The managers of the social welfare service are therefore important from a democratic perspective. The study was based on five qualitative interviews with two managers of the unity, two departmental managers and the head manager of the social welfare service.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine the current situation as regarding the political equality in Iran. The method of this reaserch is based on a single-case studie wich grounds in secondary sources. The analysis of this paper is based on fields that concern political equality which in this study will focus on the right to vote, candidacies in the parliament election 2004 and the presidential election 2005. A democracy theory by Jack Lively is used to analyze the political equality in Iran´s political system.The Iranian regim is strongly criticized by the goverments in the Western world and NGO´s for the situation of the democracy and the human rights in the country. Despite the criticism, Iran still continues in the same political direction, although the democracy has gained a stronger role in the political sphere.