This thesis deals with co-operation between municipalities viewed from the perspectiveof the small municipality. It poses two questions: How and why doessmall municipalities co-operate? and Which is the place of the small municipalityin a larger organization?. To examine this three Scanian municipalities have beenstudied and one Norwegian municipality is used to provide a perspective on theSwedish discussion.Four theoretical topics guide the thesis. Firstly the core values of municipalities;democracy, autonomy and efficiency.

Globalisation and diversity has increased the presence of different languages in Swedish municipalities. As the local administrative authorities with responsibility for the public crisis management, how are these municipalities coping with crisis communication recipients that are not speaking Swedish? Through an inductive approach, this thesis formulates a theory of crisis communication adaptation by studying Swedish municipalities with a large part of inhabitants with foreign backgrounds. This thesis finds that municipalities that are not adapting their crisis communication to non-Swedish speakers follows a discourse that paints a picture of these recipients as at least understanding the Swedish language. Municipalities that do adapt their crisis communication have drawn lessons from local incidents that complements this discourse.

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD; 2000/60/EC) was incorporated into the Swedish legislation in 2004 through the ordinance Förordningen om förvaltningenav kvaliteten på vattenmiljön (SFS 2004:660). The objective is that all water bodies shall reach a good status by the year 2015. In Sweden the comprehensive plans of the municipalities can play a large role in reaching these goals. A comprehensive plan deals with the long term water and land use of the municipality, which can facilitate an early consideration of water management in the planning process of the municipality. In Sweden five river basin districts have been established in accordance with the Water Framework Directive.

Active environmental activity?? a comparative study of the municipalities environmental activityThesis in Political Science D-Level at Karlstad University byJenny Ljung Spring 2008Tutor: Michelle MichelletiThe threat against our climate is one of our biggest challenges today. The awareness of the problem has grown rapidly for the last years in governments on international, national and regional level. The Swedish government is recognized as one of the leading countries in the climate and environmental work internationally. The Swedish municipalities play a big role in this successful work.

The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the mobile library development in Sweden since the start in Borås, Sweden in 1948. We have concentrated on three six-year periods. Our aim has been to describe a part of the mobile library development. We wanted to research the background of the said development. To do this we also studied the library and overall development in Sweden during the same years.

Who runs the development? A comparative study of the construction of residential buildings in Nacka and Södertälje.The aim of this study is to identify actors involved in the initiation and implementation of residential house construction in two Swedish municipalities. This means who is taking initiative for new residential buildings, who affects the planning process, who finances these new buildings and who builds them. By exploring empiric material from the municipalities of Nacka and Södertälje, the above questions will be answered and by referring to pluralism, growth machine theory and regime theory a link to general theories of political science is made. The results found show that the analysed municipalities have quite different possibilities for acting and that these backgrounds are also important for which actors will take initiative for new residential buildings and which actors will be allowed to state their opinion during the planning process.

This study is mostly based on previous research, which includes Sub-national actor?s attitudes and regional action towards the European Union. The purpose of the study is to investigate if four Swedish municipalities in Värmland operate internationally towards the European Union and deepen an understanding of their actions. The main research question is: - How can we increase our understanding of municipal action against the European Union? The research questions of this study are answered through qualitative method and semi-structured interviews were conducted.

The purpose of the study is to investigate and elucidate how and why municipalities cooperate across municipal boundaries with destination development. To answer the purpose the authors chose two research questions:What are the incentives of cooperation between the municipalities in Roslagen? What are the possibilities and difficulties of cooperation? In order to answer the research questions interviews with local business managers, administrative director, the acting Head of destination and tourist office staff were made. Municipalities have signed a cooperation agreement in October/November 2008, where they will work more formal together to strengthen the destination Roslagen. The result of the study shows that the main motive for municipal cooperation is the sharing of financial resources to promote and develop the destination Roslagen together.

The aim of this study has been to explore local cultural policy documents in some municipalities in the geographical region of Västra Götaland. Do the municipalities have these kinds of documents for their local cultural activities, and how are they designed? These are questions which the study has focused on. The study has been concentrated on the library activity in the local cultural policy documents. The research has been a comparative one.

Currently, the whole globe is faced with serious problems which negatively affect people around the world: increased pollution, excessive waste, and weather pattern changes. ?Left? and ?right? wing political parties alike have embraced ?green? politics and for many of these parties, environmental issues have become a top priority that is very much reflected in their manifestos. This study examines the environmental goals of two of Sweden?s largest political parties and how these ambitions are reflected at a local level.

Sweden?s environmental work is to set out from 16 national environmental quality objectives. It aims to work for a sustainable society and to solve our current environmental problems today and not pass them on to future generations. The purpose of this study was to evaluate Uppföljning av handlingsprogram för miljömål (a follow up-study of a programme for environmental quality objectives) and to propose new methods to work with the revision of Handlingsprogram ? så genomför vi de regionala miljömålen i Hallands län (a programme to implement the regional environmental quality objectives in the County of Halland), a revision which will start in autumn 2010.

The purpose of this study is to find out how the non-governmental shelters for battered women identify themselves in context of their dependence and cooperation with the municipality. Their legitimacy is also investigated which is based on, along with identity, key concepts of the neoinstitutional organization theory. The mutual dependency between these two actors is problematized along with the question of who is responsible for assisting the battered women, and who takes on the responsibilities for them. The empirical result that is analyzed was gathered through three qualitative semi structured interviews with employed personnel at three different battered women?s shelters in three different municipalities in Sweden.

In this undergraduate thesis you will venture on a journey through the land of democratic values and urban planning. My research question is stated as: whether or not urban planning can show effects on democratic values and whether or not the municipalities in Sweden takes these possible effects into account when planning their city centres. You will in my theory part of this thesis be able to read about different views on urban planning and on democracy. Famous authors like Robert D. Putnam and Richard Florida will be examined as well as other theorists on democracy and urban planning.

Our social lives and where we live shape our choices in life. One of those choices is which party we vote for in the general election. The aim of this thesis is to see if there are any connections between the Swedish general election of 2010, demography, socioeconomic factors and geography. This is done with regression analysis and chosen variables. Another aim is to see where in Sweden the chosen variables aren?t enough to explain the results of the election.

During the past decades the competition for skilful employees has increased and companies and organizations compete to attract the right people. The Swedish municipalities and country councils need to recruit 420 000 new employees before 2020, but have a limited budget to promote themselves as attractive employers. To find a solution, many of the municipalities have started to work with fundamental values to become more attractive employers and to inspire employees to use word-of-mouth to recommend them. There are no empirical studies of how successful this strategy is, and the purpose of this thesis is to show if there are significant correlations between the fundamental values, the employer's attractiveness and word-of-mouth. The results of the study are based on a survey with 1996 answers from employees in three different municipalities in Stockholm, Sweden.