The main purpose of this study is to examine if variations in voter turnout for the European Parliament elections in each member state is affected by the rate of national party polarization on the EU-dimension of party politics. The theoretical background assumes that a high level of polarization generates higher voter turnout since more alternatives are presented to the electorate. This makes it easier for the electorate to find a party that represents their preferences. This will, in turn, increase the likelihood that they will participate in the election.This study uses a research design based on a quantitative analysis with data from each member state, except those with compulsory voting, in the European Parliament elections of 2004 and 2009. The results of the analysis indicate a relationship between high levels of party polarization and lower turnout in the European Parliament election.

To introduce a standardized component assortment takes a lot of effort in order to make real cost savings. The rationalization effect itself is important, but perhaps even more important is to state the aim of the standardization efforts in a well-defined way. How can an organization assure that they are working in a proper way? How do they know that their efforts are being interpreted into the whole organization? And, how do they know that the standardization efforts actually save money? Different components differ heavily e.g. in technical complexity and quality issues.

In our world, more than two billion people are living under insecure food conditions and more than eight hundred million people are estimated to be starving. The majority of these people live in developing counties which are poor and often subject of civil war. The past fifty years the main subject of security analysis has been the sovereign and rational state and the threats have been viewed in terms of military and weapons of mass destruction. This has come to change over the last decades and security as a concept has broadened, which better represents the reality of today. Within this broader conceptualization of security the main referent of security is the individual, rather than the state, and threats are not only analyzed from a military point of view, but also seen as threats against human rights and freedoms.

The current trend towards globalisation and democratisation has made the theories of politics in pluralistic societies, and how to make them work, of particular interest and concern. Lijphart's theory of consociational democracy is an important influence in this field. At the same time the importance of civil society in transition studies and democratisation processes has been reinforced over the last thirty years. However, the complex political situation that plural societies face, creates obstacles for a healthy civil society. This thesis is based on a case study of Lebanon, a country with deep ethnic divisions and a government that resembles a consociational democracy.

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.

How can the object based art help us, as viewers and as makers, to access a supplanted emotional state?One way of positioning yourself within the corpus-field is to step outside the traditional borders of the field and aim for other values within the objects, such as a visible working process, a storytelling or an emotional relationship to the object.  It is a way of taking a step from the traditional silversmithing towards some kind of free undefined corpus-art.  To reach for suppressed feelings is one way to find an importance within the artistic work, to give it a purpose.By investigating the concept of the sublime and the surrealist movement I try to find examples on how you, both as a viewer and as a maker, can put yourself in an emotional/intuitive state.  Through interviews with Jewellery and corpus artists I get a maker?s perspective which I compare with my own reactions to their work.Works of art can be used as a catalyst to reach, and maybe also to process, unattended feelings. This creates a strong emotional connection to the work.  As a maker you can, for example, do this by working with it as a theme, or by using an intuitive working method.

In part this paper is a contribution to the ongoing Swedish discussion about our public structures. The discussion has picked up speed in the last years thanks to a government backed committee trying to come up with a suggestion to make our public sector more efficient. A big part of the debate is about the independence and work of our municipalities, what they should do, what they shouldn?t do and when the state should step in and take over. I make a theoretical investigation into one of these issues, the one about job creation.

This paper provides a study about human trafficking with sexual motives performed in European states and the measures taken from national, international and Non-Governmental organizations with the purpose to oppose human trafficking. According to the UN human trafficking has increased and shows tendencies to continue escalating, regardless of the measures taken by various organisations. In this study, four countries with associations to human trafficking have been chosen and organisations related to these countries are studied. The purpose is to inquire into how these organisations work against human trafficking and which objectives and guidelines these organisations strive for together with their values. The aim is to find out which result the organizations efforts gets and if, according to my hypothesis, the efforts oppose themselves.

How effective is consumer power? Can consumers regulate corporate behavior?And if so is the case, could the mechanisms where consumers regulate corporatebehavior have any democratic value to contribute with? These are the questionsthat this master's thesis comprehends with. The purpose of this writing is toconstruct a theory of consumer power that is compatible with democratic theory,this in order to contribute to the ongoing discussion within the discipline ofpolitical science about the third democratic transformation. A discussion that hasbeen actualized due to the democratic deficit created by the growing corporatepower and the shift of power from state to private enterprises. Besides showingfor a parallel between the democratic mechanisms that exists in the relationbetween citizens and state on the one hand, and the consumers and corporationson the other hand, this paper argues that consumers do have a great potential inregulating corporate behavior towards a higher social responsibility andawareness.

Sexual harassments have since long been an issue all over the world and schools have not been an exception. Reports from Swedish secondary schools show how 47% of the female pupils state that they have, sometime during their time in school, been the victim of sexual harassment. Other studies claim that pupils exposed to sexual harassments will develop low self-esteem and a decreased sense of self. The Swedish curriculum state that all children shall have the right to a harassment free school environment, but still many pupils claim to be exposed to sexual harassment in school. Several studies have theorized about why sexual harassment is so prevalent in schools but what do the pupils think? This study aims to reveal and analyze pupil opinions about sexual harassment; what do they think it is and why do they think it occurs? This will be done from a post-structural feminist point of view with focus on the shaping of identity among the respondents.

Tasmania is a state in Australia, and is also the country?s largest island. It is separated from the main land by a 429 kilometer wide strait. Every year, a large amount of people, cars and goods are transported to the island using a government owned ferry line, which generates approximately 300 million Australian dollars to the state?s economy ,every year. This bachelor thesis investigates the possibility of reducing the fuel consumption for the ferry traffic to and from Tasmania, which would also reduce the overall cost.

The aim with this archive guide is to give a guide to Karl-Anders Wollter?s film collection at Grängesberg Film archive. Karl-Anders Wollter worked between 1962?1993 for the State Department and mainly outside Sweden. The film collection consists of 67 films regarding his work, holidays and family life.

Throughout this thesis three main factors have been identified that can be out of significance for transfer pricing in multinational companies if the proposal for Home State Taxation is adopted. These factors are rules for calculation of the tax base, rules for dividing costs over periods and the tax rate. The formula for sharing profits will also become a factor that can have an impact on the European companies'incentives for transfer pricing interacting with above-mentioned factors. The effects of transfer pricing aiming at reducing the total amount of the taxation burden for a group of companies will be strongly reduced in the future if the proposal is adopted. Incentives for transfer pricing will loose importance, though not disappear altogether.

This study attempts a literature based reconstruction of the impact of globalisation and modernisation on the gender identities in Vietnam. Recognising the explanatory albeit normative capacity of critical theory ? specifically the feminist and globalisation critical approach ? this thesis argues that in spite of the economic benefits of modernisation, it enhances existing unequal structures. By focusing on women in the labour sector, simultaneously Vietnam's comparative advantage and one of its economically marginalised groups, a contradictory movement can be discovered. Notwithstanding the economic development, a regression in terms of women's possibilities to self-empowerment seems to cancel the benefits for the individual.

Diagnosis means detection and isolation of faults. A model based diagnosis system is built on a mathematical model of the system. The difficulty when constructing the diagnosis system depends om how the model is formulated. In this report, a method is described that rewrites the model on such a form that the construction of the diagnosis algoritm is easy. The model is transformed by two state space transformations and the result will be a system on state space form where one part of the system becomes easy to supervise.