This essay concerns the issue of democracy and judicial review. The main focus is on the justification of both a positive and a negative attitude towards judicial review, and the values these justifications are based on. The analysis is made by textual analysis of four authors with different opinions of the subject matter: Robert Dahl and Jeremy Waldron who has a negative attitude towards judicial review, and Erwin Chemerinsky and Ronald Dworkin who are positive about it. In the analysis an analytic frame is used which consists of different dimensions and aspects of the problem of democracy and judicial review. The study shows that there are important differences in democratic values between a positive and a negative justification of judicial review.

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.

The purpose of this study is to examine how parliament executes its responsibility of oversight against the government. In Sweden, parliamentary oversight of the government rests with a standing committee of parliament known as the constitutional committee.Drawing on general principal-agent theory I construct a model in which members of the constitutional committee are seen as agents in double and conflicting agency assignments. This constitutes a problem for the agent. Since it is the party group in parliament that controls the fulfilment of the agents? objectives, the agent is presumed to follow the party assignment to the detriment of the parliament assignment.The model generates two hypotheses concerning they type of oversight we should expect the members of the constitutional committee to perform against the government.

The function of traditional leaders in the modern states of Africa has been under debate for decades. The dominant research discourse suggests that these institutions should be integrated into the state in order to minimize the amount of parallel political spheres, since the latters are considered to affect state legitimacy negatively. But are the states in a situation where they need to compete with the traditional institutions in order to gain more legitimacy? If so, is the struggle for legitimacy a zero-sum game where there can only be one winner? Or is it possible for these institutions to co-exist or even benefit from each other? The aim of this bachelor?s thesis is to research if, and to what extent, African citizens? confidence in traditional institutions has an effect on state legitimacy. This has been done by statistically analyzing the data from the latest completed round of the Afrobarometer survey, a study that has been conducted in 20 different countries across West- and Northeast Africa.

Vi gör en jämförelse av två teorier som båda behandlar hanteringen av etniska konflikter i plurala samhällen. Dessa två teorier - Consociational Democracy och Transversal Politics, är varandras motsatser och har båda implementerats i etniskt splittrade samhällen. Consociational Democracy som förespråkar mellanetnisk interaktion, har tillämpats i bland annat Bosnien- Hercegovina. Transversal Politics, som har tillämpats i Rwanda, förordar istället icke-etniska politiska plattformer. Båda dessa länder upplevde etniska rensningar under 90-talet, och har sedan dess präglats av försonings- och demokratiseringsprocesser med stor internationell närvaro.

Social control in different forms has existed in all known societies. This control has taken different shapes and expressions. In older smaller communities there was a collective control among the citizens. In modern societies the state is trying to control the lives of the citizens. These control mechanisms can be seen as both freedom-reducing and freedom inducing depending on which concept of freedom one upholds.

Den biståndspolitiska världen är oerhört komplex och inte tillräckligt ifrågasatt.De centrala aktörerna som har makten i utvecklingen av biståndsdiskursen harhaft en övertro på sig själva. Framförallt har det rått en omedvetenhet och en bristpå engagemang i frågor som gäller den framtida utvecklingen ibiståndsmottagande länder. Det är ytterst viktigt att lyfta fram hurutvecklingsländer har exploatera's och utnyttjat's av västvärlden samt den oviljasom har funnit's att sopa ihop skärvorna av det som krossat's. Även omovanstående problematik i vis's mån existerar än idag, har det internationellagivarsamfundet enat's om en utveckling som tendera att leda biståndspolitiken irätt riktning.I Moçambique har en ny utvecklingsstrategi inom bistånd och korruption tagitform. Parisdeklarationen och FN:'s korruptionskonvention utgör tillsamman's medOECD och det internationella givarsamfundet den kraft som skall mobiliseralandet till ekonomisk självständighet.

This case study explores the question of implementation and steering in a society of governance. As an empirical example, a reform concerning the reception of separated refugee children in Sweden is used. As of the 1st of July 2006 the responsibility for providing housing for separated children lies with the local governments rather than with the Swedish Board of Migration, aiming to improve the children's situation. However, implementing this amendment has turned out to be a harder task than expected. Traditionally, the relationship between state and local actors is seen in terms of state steering or local self-government.

This study explores the notion of class and social inequality as expressed in the Swedish election campaign of 2006 and in the reception of the Swedish conservative party as a "worker's party". Inspired by Fairclough's critical discourse analysis I have carried through an investigation of the debate. My sources consists in a collection of articles, mainly leader columns and contributions to the debate, from a selected number of Swedish newspapers.I found that an explicit discussion about class, or use of the concept as such, was largely absent. In cases where the concept occurred it was often used in a purely descriptive sense or dismissed as outdated. Furthermore, I have drawn the conclusion that the traditional understanding of class is being challenged by a discourse which aims at establishing a new understanding of social inequality as lack of paid work.I take my point of departure in the belief that class continues to be one of the most important bases of social inequality.

Från 1979 till 2004 kan tre faser i den iranska republikens postrevolutionäraera identifieras, ofta refererade till som ?de tre republikerna?. Den förstarepubliken inleddes med den islamska revolutionen och avslutades medKhomeinis död 1989. Den andra präglades av konsolideringen av de statligainstitutionerna under president Hashemi Rafsanjanis styre från 1989 till1997. Den tredje inleddes med en överraskande presidentseger för denreformvänlige Mohammad Khatami 1997 till 2004.Denna uppsats har sökt svara på frågan vad för sorts islamsk republikIran har utvecklats till under sitt första kvartal och hur de politiskamaktspänningarna har sett ut och förändrats under denna period.Vi har utgått från Juan Linz kriterier om vad som karaktäriserar enauktoritär regim, men på grund av det iranska systemets inneboendespänningar som lagstadgats i konstitutionen och på grund av den maktkampsom bedrivits inom de politiska institutionerna mellan semidemokratiskaförespråkare och semidiktatoriska, så har vi varit tvungna att vidga vårtresonemang..

This is a discourse analysis concerning the visions for Malmö's future. Three concepts are studied to see which meaning these are given in the Malmö context. The studied concepts are ? development (utveckling), industry (näringsliv) and citizen (befolkning).The meanings of these concepts are studied against a backdrop of theories of inclusion/exclusion in general and inclusion/exclusion in the city more specific. Michael Foucault´s notion of a discourse which stigmatizes those not following a behaviour which is defined as being right and normal is central to this.

The regime theory is the dominant paradigm in the studies of urban politics in USA. It provides a set of concepts to analyse the change from government to governance in the American local politics. The regime theory postulates that governing power in local government tends to be highly fragmented. The private sector has with its control of economic resources a major influence in shaping governing decisions. In this essay I study the regime theory in a Swedish context to investigate if the theory is pertinent when studying of Swedish local governance.

Hög sjukfrånvaro är en ständigt aktuell fråga i Sverige. Förutom problemet med hög sjukfrånvaro i absoluta tal finns i Sverige även stora regionala skillnader i sjukfrånvaro som inte kan förklaras med skillnader i hälsostatus mellan olika regioner. För att sjukförsäkringen ska få mer karaktär av försäkring med mindre godtycklighet i ersättningsbedömning krävs en tydligare koppling mellan risken som ska försäkras bort och försäkringens användande. Frågan som behandlas i denna uppsats är huruvida sjukförsäkringens uppgift att hantera risk för inkomstbortfall på grund av ohälsa samt att omfördela resurser mellan högrisk ? och lågriskindivider kan utföras mer effektivt och försäkringsmässigt på en konkurrensmarknad än med en enhetlig sjukförsäkring.

The so called democratic deficit and the lack of legitimacy have been at the core of the EU-debate in the last decades. Low turnouts in the elections for the European parliament and disapproval in the ratification processes of the latest changes of the treaties are examples of the citizens lack of confidence for the EU and continuous integration. In Nice 2000 the heads of the member states governments agreed to try to improve the democratic legitimacy in the EU and initiated a public debate aiming at proposals for changes in the decision making processes in the EU. In July 2001 the commission published a white paper with their view. A fundamental presumption in discourse theory is that language and language usage not just is a way to deliver information about ideas and behaviours.

Uppsatsen behandlar frågan om huruvida högre takt i produktivitetsutvecklingen påverkar sysselsättningsgraden negativt i en ekonomi då förbättringar i arbetsbesparande teknologi medför lägre efterfrågan på arbete. Frågeställningen har uppkommit med jämna mellanrum genom historien sedan den första industriella revolutionen utan att något långsiktigt samband kunnat bekräftas. Uppsatsens undersökning av 10 OECD länder mellan 1979 och 2003 finner inte heller stöd för ett sådant långsiktigt samband. Däremot finns starkt stöd för att produktivitetsutveckling har negativ inverkan på sysselsättningen på både kort och medelfristig sikt. Utifrån detta kan arbetstillfällen räddas på kort och medelfristig sikt men inte på lång sikt då de, inom tillverkningssektorn och även generellt, ser ut att minska oavsett takten i produktivitetsutvecklingen.