Descartes sharp distinction between body and mind has had a severe influence on the culture of the western world. We now have a constructed system of knowledge that discards perception asunreliable and instead admits only deduction as the adequate method of understanding oursurroundings and ourselves.But what are we, if not human?And what would our lives be like without our dreams, the passions of our hearts and the sensationsof our sense organs?Irrational as it all may seem, these aspects form our existence, giving us pleasure, experience andknowledge beyond what we plan or try to predict. It is the fuel that keeps us going, fighting, loving.So how come we seek to explain everything? How come we seek the approval of others in matters we should be confident enough to judgeourselves? Why can't we embrace all the aspects of what it means to be alive? I state that the society and culture of the western world offers great possibilities for expression andcommunication.

This thesis is a comparative analysis of language policy in the Post-Soviet states Ukraine and Kazakhstan, wherein the states are seen as rational actors using language as an instrument in the nation-building process. With a take-off point in an underframe of theories on the nation, national identity, instrumentalism, power and the particular role of language in the nation-building process, this thesis shows that language is a key instrument used by the two states.The Ukrainian and Kazakhian language policies create and put across a certain image of the nation, by emphasising the titular languages as symbols of the new states. The line of argument in the language policy is a balance act between large-scale promotion of titular languages and a careful and inclusive attitude towards the Russian language. The biggest differences are that Ukraine, compared to Kazakhstan, has a more comprehensive and consequent language policy with a deeply rooted historic rhetoric. The most obvious instruments of the states in language policy is censuses, corpus-planning and the state choosing one official language..

During the late 19: th century the park Tivoli in Halmstad, today called Norre Katts park, was known as one of the most beautiful amusementparks of southern Sweden. This is a description that hardly anyone would use to portray the park today. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate what the park once looked like and how it has changed until today?s neglected state. The history of the place and by who and for whom the park with; 4 ½ acers with meandering paths, caves, an avenue, leaf halls and bowers, was created. Who designed the park in the year of 1843 is an unrequited question.

This thesis is an evaluative study of the political reform, Friskolereformen, which enabled independent schools to receive state funding. The study evaluates to what extent the incentives, which preceded the reform, have been fulfilled. The evaluation is defined to include upper secondary schools in the municipality of Halmstad during the years of 2005?2010. The reform was enacted on the basis that it would result in a higher standard of quality, efficiency and freedom of choice.

This report is the result of a thesis work done at the Department of Engineering Sciences, Uppsala University, and includes 15 ECTS points. The work has been performed at Företag A, a company specializing in electronics whose major product has become a sophisticated tool used by authorities across northern Europe. Företag A has initiated a quality management system according to the criteria set by ISO 9001. Following demands from customers, Company A has now decided to also start working towards a certification according to SS-EN ISO 9001:2008, this work is the foundation for the thesis work. The thesis work has been limited to the production process and the aim has been to enable this process to be certified according to ISO 9001:2008. The work has been performed by analyzing the existing quality management system and the requirements for each process included, whereby the gap between the current and the target state has been mapped. Suggestions have then been made on how this gap can be filled, some of these suggestions have also been carried out during the thesis work. The conclusions drawn are that quality management does not have to be complicated, but quickly becomes so when the complexity of the processes increases.

Social policy has now received an increased attention in the European Union. The European welfare states experience a high level of unemployment, which the EU now tries to handle through the European Employment Strategy (EES). The core of this essay is whether the welfare institutions of the European member states are integrating through an institutionalization process or not. Within the EU four different types of welfare models can be identified: the Scandinavian, the Continental, the Southern and the Anglo-Saxon. The welfare models differ in the institutional settings e.g.

In what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze labelled Control Societies, mechanisms reminiscent of censorship ? that is, restriction of information that administrators of power wish to regulate the spreading of ? are present in the concept of copyright. This kind of censorship has theadvantage of not being scrutinized by public eyes in the way that the work of institutionalized censorship agencies such as the Swedish Statens Biografbyrå was. It is not unlikely that expanded possibilities for punishing anyone who spreads copyrighted material will result in larger and larger areas that may not be accessed, as the avoiding of conflict and repressive actions will emphasize the behaviour to take detours around information that is deemed taboo and therefore suspicious and dangerous.The ACTA trade agreement is one proposed tool for such extended possibilities for punishment. This essay does not however claim that copyright and censorship are the same ? but rather that the institutional execution of power that was previously a matter of state censorship has a lot of similarities with current and prognosticated application of copyright laws by corporations.While claiming to protect the individual, the disciplinary power executed actually aims to protect the one executing it; the purpose of the power structure is to replicate itself..

In what French philosopher Gilles Deleuze labelled Control Societies, mechanisms reminiscent of censorship ? that is, restriction of information that administrators of power wish to regulate the spreading of ? are present in the concept of copyright. This kind of censorship has the advantage of not being scrutinized by public eyes in the way that the work of institutionalized censorship agencies such as the Swedish Statens Biografbyrå was. It is not unlikely that expanded possibilities for punishing anyone who spreads copyrighted material will result in larger and larger areas that may not be accessed, as the avoiding of conflict and repressive actions will emphasize the behaviour to take detours around information that is deemed taboo and therefore suspicious and dangerous. The ACTA trade agreement is one proposed tool for such extended possibilities for punishment.This essay does not however claim that copyright and censorship are the same ? but rather that the institutional execution of power that was previously a matter of state censorship has a lot of similarities with current and prognosticated application of copyright laws by corporations.

This paper examines the power producing dams along the Ume-river as an integral part of and a result from the urbanization process in Sweden during industrial capitalism. The aim of the paper is to contribute to the knowledge of the urbanization process in Sweden in general and of its traces along the Ume river in the county of Västerbotten in particular. The paper applies the theory of concentrated urbanization and extended urbanization put forward by Neil Brenner and Christian Schmid (2015) and argues that the building of power producing dams along the Ume-river is part of an extended urbanization process. This becomes particularly evident when examining the vast physical structures that is the dams, situated in an otherwise remote and sparsely populated area. These vast physical structures are also very well connected to a nation wide electric grid that has connections to bordering countries as well.

This paper has bearing on the subject of foreign policy analysis and decision-making,but is nonetheless important to peace and conflict studies due to its emphasis onnuclear weapons and deterrence.I have constructed a theoretical framework for the analysis of foreign policydecision-making that I set out to test on a crucial case. The framework iscrosscutting, and takes into consideration four levels of analysis: the system-,regional-, state-, and individual level. It is centred on a key decision maker, andapplies a cognitive approach for determining his or hers belief system through whichthe inputs from the other levels are filtered in order for the decision maker toconstruct a perception of reality, from which the decision is then formulated within.The framework is applied to North Korean and its leader Kim Jong Il. It sets outto explain his behaviour in the matter of their claimed nuclear weapons program, andhis decision to conduct a nuclear weapons-test, getting inside his head trying to figureout why he chose to do it and for what reasons.The conclusion indicates that the basic structure of the framework and its generalapplicability is sound, but that it needs further testing in order to make it perfectly solid..

Croatia became an independent country 1991 and has since then strived to reach a democracy level, which can lead to membership of the European Union. The purpose of this essay is on the basis of consolidate democratic perspective to illustrate Croatia?s democratic development.In order to fulfil the aim, I have applied a qualitative text analysis technique. Through analysis of books and documents, data was collected to accommodate a valid result. I have used consolidated democracy, with its five areas (political, civil, economic, legal and bureaucratic), as my theoretical framework to the data, to provide answers and develop an analysis.The conclusions show that the consolidate democracy in Croatia has developed a lot since the independence, and Croatia is on its good way to turn into a democratic state like other West-European countries.

This essay focuses on how trafficking is defined and dealt with in recent European policies,and particularly how prostitution take part of these discursive developments. Treaties andagreements on trafficking in human beings and for sexual exploitation have been made bythe European Union and United Nations amongst others, which have been signed andratified by the EU countries in Action Plans. In this essay, five national Actions Plans, fromAustria, Great Britain, Poland, Spain and Sweden between 2007 and 2009, have beencompared in order to see similarities and differences in how the phenomenon of traffickingis done through language. Based on Discourse theory and focus on discursive struggles, theresult show a hegemony around trafficking as a social issue in the Action Plans studied,exploiting humans, mainly children and women, sexually, but also how trafficking is framedas a problem of the nation state and the domestic labour market. It is also illustrated howdifferent meanings of prostitution make the trafficking discourse antagonistic and contested.Finally, the essay discusses the trafficking discourse in relation to EU strivings towardsharmonisation and power imbalances of migration and economy in Europe..

This essay examines the theme of blindness in the Gospel of Mark. The two main questions asked are: 1) ?What is Mark?s view on blindness?? and 2) ?How does the Gospel of Mark?s view on blindness inform the current discourse of disability studies and how can we interpret Mark?s view on blindness today?? By the methods of metaphor analysis and character analysis, four passages of the Gospel are studied (Mark 4:10-12; 8:14-21; 22-26; 10:46-52). The analysis concludes that blindness is depicted by the author of the Gospel as a disability which also consist of a lack of cognitive ability and a hopeless state that is in need of healing.  The depiction of blindness in Mark originates out of the authors use of blindness as a metaphor for lack of cognitive ability (Mk 4:12; 8:18) and the lack of characterization of the blind man at Bethsaida (8:22-23). This view on blindness is, in comparison to a modern view, difficult, as it marginalizes persons with blindness as inconsiderate and not fully human.

This study aims to unravel if it should be accepted to use natural resources in the Sami reindeer grazing area for the green transition. Mines, wind parks, and other infrastructure in the reindeer grazing area create problems for the reindeers which makes it difficult for the Sami to proceed with this traditional practice. While the Sami people have right to practice these customs the minerals and land which in it lies could be crucial to successfully go through the green transition in Sweden and the European Union as well. To answer the question: Should it be acceptable to use natural resources in the Sami reindeer grazing area to accomplish the green transition? a reflective equilibrium will be applied to the principles of egalitarianism and collective rights.

This study aims to examine attitudes and conceptions of staff who work with mentally disabled persons, concerning normalization and gender. Six qualitative interviews with such professionals were performed and subsequently analyzed. Since the method of this study is qualitative, no claim of generalizability is made. The interview material has been categorized into themes by means of coding. The result of the study is presented according to those themes.