This study is about state officials who handle applications for sickness benefits and about municipal officials who handle applications for financial assistance. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences between the two professional roles regarding their conception about their exercise of authority, in terms of flexibility, individual adjustment, empathy and legal security.The study has a qualitative approach and is based on structured interviews with two state officials and two municipal officials. The questions that this study aims to answer are:- Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their experience and use of flexibility? - Is there a difference between state officials and municipal officials regarding their perceptions of legal security, individual adjustment and empathy in their exercise of authority? - What kind of bureaucracy can you find in the two organizations?The results show that the state officials in this study have very limited flexibility due to legislation which makes their exercise of authority neither empathic nor individual. The municipal officials in this study state in their turn that the law entails broad flexibility and the opportunity for them to be empathic and to make individual decisions.

The liberal state, it has been argued, must be neutral between different conceptions of the good. Embodying ideals such as fairness and impartiality, state neutrality is intuitively appealing, but working as a restraint for state actions it is somewhat unsatisfactory. People make mistakes about their lives and people live less valuable lives than they could do. To then restrain the state from doing as much good as it can seems just as unappealing as neutrality at first seemed appealing. In this paper, a possible solution to this dilemma is presented.

The purpose of this study is to examine which security approach dominates Sweden?s strategy for combating human trafficking. The two approaches covered in this essay are the state- centred perspective, and the individual-centred perspective. These approaches are being used because those two approaches are on each end of the security spectrum, and it is important to discover from what approach Sweden is working. This is important because it might help us to get a bigger understanding on why certain policies are being made.

This thesis aim to investigate the living conditions among marginalized habitants of suburbs in the Swedish welfare state. To approach an understanding of the complexity of marginalized urban areas, this thesis focus on studying the Stockholm suburb Husby in a context of the May riots 2013.The research method used is qualitative interviews with seven informants, who have a connection to the Husby area.The theories applied to the empirical material is Gösta Esping-Andersens theory on welfare state regimes and Loïc Wacquants theory on advanced marginality, also known as ?The new urban poverty?.By observing the complexity of the Husby riots in a contextual aspect of the Swedish welfare state and the living situation in Husby, the analysis has shown that the Swedish welfare model is going through a changing process. This process means a shift from a social democratic welfare model towards a more liberal regime, with an increased privatization of public welfare and a focus on individual responsibility regarding the citizens own living conditions. Husby as an area is characterized by a low socioeconomic status, a high level of unemployment and poor school results.

Liberal theorists typically argue that state action should not favor any particular conception of the good or meaningful life. On this view the defining characteristic of the liberal state is neutrality among rivaling ideas of the good. This thesis argues that state neutrality is impossible to maintain in practice. Two different versions of state neutrality; neutral justification and neutral aims, are used to analyze a wide range of political issues. It is concluded that far from being neutral, the liberal state favors individualistic and market oriented conceptions of the good life.

What role does the state play in economic development? This thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between a strong state and economic development. To define the concept of a strong state I focus on the relationship between the scope of state functions and the efficiency of which these functions are implemented. The concept of a strong state is in this thesis defined as the efficiency of the state functions. By using a database constructed by three economists; David Kaufman, Aart Kraay and Massimo Mastruzzi as a measurement of a strong state I test the relationship with economic development empirically.

The time we live in now is significant for its many ways of spreading information- it is indeed the era of communication. The Internet is the main reason for this evolution, where you can reach out to any corner in the world in less then a second. Information is flowing over us and we get more and more used to being in a constant accessible state. The individual might spread his own word as he wishes. From a democratic point of view this should give a great opening for everyone into the public spheer.

When Vladimir Putin in the year 2000 came to power in Russia many believed that the Russian civil society were weak and had very little influence and with Putin people say that the situation have deteriorated. The purpose of this paper is to establish what kind of relationship exists between the Russian state and the civil society and to analyze this from a top-down perspective. We are looking at Russia during Putins first term in office from the year 2000 until 2004. In order to establish the relationship we have used John S. Dryzeks theory of inclusive and exclusive state and whether it?s active or passive in this process.

The aim of this essay is to illustrate a fundamental question; what is a democracy allowed to do to protect itself from enemies? I´ve chosen to analyze the conflict between the two values; individual integrity and state´s security. The individual integrity refers to every person's right to have a protected sphere, and the stat´s security refers to its right to protect itself, and these two positions are often time incompatible. This conflict of value is shown in a normative analysis, where depending on which perspective or normative logic is seen as primate, it gives different conclusions to what a democracy should do to defend itself.To demonstrate how severe the threats are against the society, I choose to examine a specific part of the organized crime, the outlaw motorcycle gangs. They have a special position in affecting the legal system because they have an explicit aim to influence the judicial system with scaremongering and threats.

The three post-communist states - Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine ? have gone different ways in terms of freedom and democracy since the breakdown of the Soviet Union 1991. During these years, the state and the civil society have been fundamental actors in the struggle against, and even for, authoritarianism.A strong state with great capacity in Belarus has undermined the chances for the civil society to fulfil its task as a watchdog of the state and link between the citizens and the government.Failed authoritarianism in Moldova has led to a situation where both the state and the civil society are weak. The major problem is lack of organization and cohesion; both the state and the civil society have often been divided by ethnical differences and are therefore not strong enough to promote democracy.In Ukraine, the dominance of a strong state ended in 2004 when the Orange Revolution took place, sometimes called a ?peak of democracy? where popular mobilization and protests succeeded in it's opposition against the state.

This paper attempts to survey the debate in the Swedish parliament on state surveillance on the Internet, from 1994 to March, 2007. With a discourse analysis inspired by Foucault, we follow how the idea of state surveillance is viewed by politicians during the period. By focusing on the Internet, we expect to find how politicians in the parliament regard the idea of an unregulated forum for citizen communication and interaction, and how the need for state surveillance on the new arena that is Internet, is expressed and argued for. Theoretical framework is given by Foucault?s theory of the Panoptic state, as well as his thoughts on discourse, power and governmentality.

At the beginning of the 21st century, youth unemployment is paid attention to by the Swedish government and media. A grand part of the unemployed youth live at their parents´ house because of economic reasons contrary to their primary goal to be able to make their own living. It can be argued that the young unemployed´ s social citizenship is inferior to working citizens´ social citizenship. The thesis will not deal with suggestions on practical solutions, but rather seek for theoretical answers to whether the responsibility for the young people referred to should be a responsibility of the State or of the family. Communitarianism is a relatively young theory which is interesting for this thesis because it sheds light on the dichotomy individual - community.

The State Institution for Education of Feebleminded Girls was one of the two swedish educational institutions established under state management in the 1920s and came to be the starting point for further government operations for the mentally deficient. The purpose of this paper was to investigate the activities of the State Institution for Education of Feebleminded Girls, out of what needs the institution filled in Sweden?s care for the mentally deficient. The institution has tried to be understood from the view of eugenics and the perspective of children that was current during the 1900s first half.To fulfill the purpose of the study, the archives for the State Institution for Education of Feebleminded Girls was studied and analyzed with basis of previous research on Sweden?s care for the mentally deficient and the impact from eugenics and Sweden?s child perspective.The study shows that the State Institution for Education of Feebleminded Girls mostly existed to educate students and adapt them to the community, which the institution did by education, disciplinary interventions and sterilizations.

This thesis deals with the concepts of individual and individuation as defined by Leibniz and Spinoza. I go through the use and definition of the concept of individual in four stages.First I discuss the individual as conceived by Spinoza as a relation formed by a composition of parts and the individual as conceived by Leibniz as a complete notion consisting of all the events in the life of a subject.Next is the roll of perception in Leibniz discussed, likewise individuation through different perception with varying distinctness, and the affinity of perception with affection.The discussions concerning the individual concludes in a section about the essence of the individual as being the desire of the individual. In the last stage, I discuss the multitude as being an own individual..

This thesis aimed to, with the help of a case study, investigate and discuss state responsibility towards climate refugees. The state of Tuvalu was selected because of their vulnerability as a low-lying island state. This was fulfilled by on-site study how the state Tuvalu acted to climate threats, determine if the future migrants from Tuvalu can be counted as climate refugees and find out if they are by that definition included by the UN Refugee Convention. The result indicated that the state of Tuvalu is adapting to climate threats, that in the future the population can be seen as climate refugees, if they are forced from their homes due to climate change, and that they, despite that definition, can not be included by the UN Refugee Convention. The study also indicates a need for greater international protection of climate refugees by, for example, an expansion of the UN Refugee Convention so that these vulnerable people do not fall into oblivion due to a question of definition..