Officially, the EU gender policy since 2000 has been guided by the strategy of Gender Mainstreaming. This strategy aims to promote gender equality and is informed by a feminist ontology which stipulates that women are structurally subordinated.In this essay, I examine whether the European Commission has adequately adhered to this gender policy in its free trade negotiations with the ACP (African, Caribbean, and Pacific) countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement. As a result of my text analysis of documents related to the negotiations, opinion pieces by interested actors and policy papers of the EU, I find that the Commission does not act in accordance to its stated gender policy.To explain this discrepancy between policy intent and actions, I employ postliberal feminist theory and Robert Putnam's Two-Level Game Theory Model. By analyzing statistics and published research, I explore how gender issues are being represented politically on a domestic and international level.My findings show that a key cause of this discrepancy lies in the low levels of female participation in the political institutions of the EU and ACP; a lack of participation that is especially pronounced in the area of international economics. In explaining the constraints on female participation and the prospects of full implementation of the EU's gender policy in the international political economy, I emphasize the role of culturally and historically gendered institutions..

This essay studies the practice of both the political and the administrative leadership at the municipal level from the point of view of the politicians and the chief officers leadership role, and the relationship between politicians and administrators. I discuss and analyse how politicians and senior officials practice leadership, differences or similarities and if their practice of leadership raises any challenges in a democratic framework at the municipal level. I conducted interviews with the municipal political leader and the head of administration at the municipal level in Karlshamn and Sölvesborg. In the analysis I discuss communication as a leadership process which highlights ?enabling elements? and potentials of the leadership process.

This study analyzes how civil society contributes to the democratic development in a Nicaragua governed by the sandinist party FSLN. The empirical focus lays at the relationship between state and the civil society. By using a conceptual framework outlined by Caroline Boussard, the civil society is being analyzed as an actor with a democracy-building potential that is supported or constrained by a political context.The civil society is divided between traditional social movement and more newly borned NGOs. Social movements tend to approach the government comparatively to NGOs, which adopt a highly critical attitude. In contrast to NGOs, the traditional social movements are improving their democratic functions as a counterpart while NGOs confine its democratic potential to an agenda setter drawing attention to democratic deficits.

Den offentliga sektorn i Sverige har under de senaste decennierna påverkats av stora reformvågor. De bakomliggande idéströmningarna har kommit att gå under samlingsnamnet New Public Management där ekonomiska värden starkt betonas. Man menar att det inte bör göras någon skillnad mellan privata företag och offentliga organisationer i valet av organisationsstruktur och förspråkar att den offentliga sektorn närmar sig den privata sektorns organisationsstrukturer. Samtidigt har röster höjts kring att den offentligt-rättsliga public service-televisionen, SVT, kommit under starkt inflytande av dessa ekonomiska värden på bekostnad av de demokratiska och att detta är problematiskt.Studien tar utgångspunkt i dessa fenomen och undersöker med hjälp av diskursteoretiska utgångspunkter huruvida SVTs ledning agerar med utgångspunkt i en New Public Management-diskurs.Våra resultat visar att kritiken är befogad i det avseendet att det finns en tydlig NPM-prägel på den diskurs som ledningen brukar. Även när hänsyn tas till omkringliggande relevanta förändringar ter sig de förändringar som ägt rum inom SVT som utmärkande då man istället för att fokusera på sitt ursprungliga uppdrag och söka problematisera sitt förhållande till demokratin har kommit att prioritera dessa ekonomiska värden..

The essay's aim is to explain how responsibility distribution between private and public bodies, primarily within three important service areas, can be visualised in light of the fact that they have experienced different forms of readjustment. We have chosen to study this by looking at the restoration work taking place after the hurricane Gudrun swept across southern Sweden on January 8-9, 2005; and we have chosen to concentrate on the service areas of electricity- and telephone supply, and public transport. The responsibility distribution has been depicted by carrying out qualitative interviews with employees within both private and public bodies included in the restoration work. The conclusion produced is that there were obscurities in the formal responsibility distribution between private and public actors taking place in conjunction with the hurricane restoration work.In a deeper analysis, the result can be explained by a ?several hands? problem arising since the number of actors has increased as the public sphere has adopted leadership forms influenced by the private business sector.

The EU has for a long time had a special relationship with its former colonies in Africa Caribbean and the Pacific, called the ACP?countries. This relationship is about to change radically with the new partnership agreement signed in June 2000 in Cotonou. This essay aims to study the EU ?ACP Partnership Agreement from the perspectives of two different theories: The liberalist, free-trade policy theory and the nationalist/regionalist, protectionist theory.

The topic of this thesis interest is the relation between branding as a place making/marketing technology and the process of regionalization. The main proposition advocated is that the officially communicated image of the Øresund Region, as a cohesive place and community, is a space that has been configured with branding and can be described as a territorial simulation. The concept of territorial simulation consists of two conjoined terms: simulation which aim at explaining the idiosyncratic brand image, as a social formation, which does not represent the place it imitates but commoditise it; and territorial which seeks to visualize the process of the unfolding of this image as a territory. The main argument is made in the third chapter, which traces the process of actualization of the brand image as a territory: ?Øresund?.

Title: What is important knowledge in social studies- An analyse of opinions among teachers in social studiesThe aim of this paper is to increase the awareness about how teachers in Social studies think about goals and substance in the subject. I also want to get a picture about what kinds of problems teacher?s experiences when teaching Social studies. My expectations told me that Social studies are complex to teach, because it derives from several university disciplines such as Political science, Economics, Sociology, Law and Geography, which I believe makes the subject harder to define and what to give priority to. Finally, I want to increase the awareness, if it seems to be any fundamental essence in Social studies as a subject.To achieve my goals with this paper I have studied relevant literature about Social studies.

The aim of this comparative study is to analyse the French and the Polish regional governance in order to see if there are any differences in their regional ruling systems. Further more I will study their different possibilities in taking part in the European Union regional political market. The shape of the regional systems will be explored both organisationally (study of the institutional entities of the regional construction) and functionally (study of the competencies of the regional body etcetera) to focus on its cause on the regional development. My over all focus will be to find out whether regional rule means differently in the countries France and Poland.Several questions are dealt with and the two main ones are as follows; How do the different structures of the form of government in France and Poland influence the governance on the regional level? Do Poland, as a new member state of the European Union, have what it takes to face the challenges of the new membership; or are there a complex of problems arising from the admittance that prevent its regions from fully taking part in the European regional political market?Some of my conclusions are as follows;There are major differences between the two countries when it comes to their regional ruling systems leading to different abilities in taking part in the European regional political market.

In the rural districts of Sweden, especially in Skåne, the political party Sverigedemokraterna is gaining more and more territory. The aim of this thesis is to examine if the presence of Sverigedemokraterna has had an effect on the other political parties in Kävlinge and Svedala municipality, with focus on images and collective identity. The aim is also to examine what influence Sverigedemokraterna might have on the political agenda of the two municipalities. In order to be able to fulfil the purpose of the essay, we chose to combine three kinds of qualitative methods; interviews, observations and literature studies. We used theories about images and collective identity to examine in which way the municipal politicians tend to classify Sverigedemokraterna in terms of different images and if their presence has effected the other politicians in terms of forming a collective identity.

To create fair conditions between majority and minority in Sweden is a challeging project. Male immigrants usually do not get same opportunities for a success identity structure and integration into Swedish society as women and children. The aim of this thesis is therefore to critically examine and analyse the processes regarding identity structure and integration for male immigrants with a specific focus on Helsingborg. The object of this study is Mansgrupp, a project which helps men to build up a secure ground for identity structure and which further helps them to integrate into the society. To be able to reach the results I have made a literature study as well as a minor field study in Helsingborg, where I conducted interviews with men from the above mentioned project.

To create fair conditions between the majority and minorities in a cultural diverse society poses a challenge for both the makers of government policy and the political theorist. The aim of this thesis is to examine the Swedish government official reports concerning integration and minority rights, with a special interest in values and cultural rights. As a methodological tool a theoretical model that classifies cultural rights is developed and the three normative doctrines lockean libertarianism, comprehensive liberalism and multiculturalism are distinguished from the discussion about how politics ought to be in a multicultural society. Through this perspective rights and values in the official reports are identified and analyzed. The result shows three different standpoints in the reports concerning which cultural minority group they are discussing.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka regeringens motiv till en föreslagen marknadsorienterad reform av primärvården, vårdval i Sverige. Genom en analys av över tjugo texter från den offentliga diskussionen om vårdval, nationellt och i landstingen Halland, Stockholm och Skåne där vårdvalsmodeller är initierade, ges läsaren inblick i en pågående reformprocess. Centrala aktörer, den politiska majoriteten och oppositionen, läkare och akademiker, finns representerade i analysen eftersom det krävs en bred ansats med inte bara regeringens texter utan även andra aktörers röster för att förstå motiven till reformen.Tre teoretiska perspektiv med kompletterande förslag till varför förändring sker används i analysen. Två från nyinstitutionell teori, ett symbolperspektiv och ett verktygsperspektiv, samt ett maktperspektiv.En rationell diskussion dominerar de analyserade texterna där reformen är ett verktyg för att nå resultat, som att öka besöken i primärvården och att skapa konkurrens mellan vårdgivare. Med symbolperspektivet föreslås ideologiskt förändringstryck eller strävan efter legitimitet vara de drivande motiven.

Ever since Lipsky wrote about street-level bureaucrats in 1980 the main belief has been that certain characteristics of their jobs make it exceptionally difficult to severely reduce their discretion. However, discretion comes at a price and if public servants abuse their power the legitimacy of government is at risk and ultimately even the democracy.This thesis address this question by analysing the Swedish employment service which in the beginning of 2001 started a project called ?Af Sverige? trying to improve internal rule of law. By comparing two local and fairly equal jobcentres and how the street-level bureaucrats within use their discretion, I seek to find support for my hypotheses that organizing local jobcentres according to the principles of machine bureaucracy plays a significant part in reducing discretion.My findings show that a jobcentre characterised by strict rules, few units, good communications and a forthright manager who delegates formal power to the employees results in a stricter and more uniform application of regulations among the street-level bureaucrats. My conclusion is therefore unambiguous.

This thesis analyzes and discusses the role of institutions concerning countries' abilities to create economic wealth. The countries that we are analyzing are the former members of the Warsaw pact and former Yugoslavia. These countries are referred to as transition countries. In order to analyze the transition countries institutional structure we are using Douglass C. North's theory regarding institutions and institutional building.