The aim of this essay is to examine how people living in the Swedish countryside looked upon changes in the interiors through modernization in 1850-90. For the first time, there was an abundance of objects available in stores in the countryside that the majority of the population had money buy. Many novelties were introduced in the interior decoration of ordinary peoples´ homes. This study focuses on the introduction and use of wallpaper and is based on a questionnaire about wallpaper sent from the Nordiska museet, National museum of Culture history in Sweden, to people all over Sweden in 1948. 148 people responded to the questions about use and attitudes toward wallpaper during the second half of the 19th century.My theoretical perspective is cultural diffusion, the spread of cultural items, more specific the diffusion of innovations from larger to smaller places, often influenced by social elites, hierarchical diffusion, and between individuals, contagious diffusion.The analytical perspective used for the analysis is based on the concepts of basic and variable modernity, initiated by the historian Sven-Eric Liedman.

The main aim of my research essay is to examine two congregations, one in Sweden and one in Democratic Republic of Congo, how theology and the life in the church shape the cultural context. The analysis uses semi-structured interviews of two pastors responsible for organizing the Easter celebration in their churches. The interviews serve the purpose to reveal how they apply theology in their context, how they interpret the Easter celebration liturgically in relation to the early church and how they perceive the cultural development in the congregations Easter celebration 2010-11. To give complementary insights to the interviews I use computer-aided interviews with members of the congregations. The methodological approach is based on a study of contextual theological theories, Easter traditions in the early church, Easter theologies and then applying these theories in the interviews.

Our starting point has been to use the football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a model person for individualism that seams to break the ordinary socialization pattern in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to examine how the team leaders handle the socialization of more individualistic focused individuals/young persons into groups, since the Swedish School Curriculum is designed to meet each individual on his or hers former experiences. Is the socialization of individuals within team sports affected by their cultural background? And, in that case, should those facts have consequences for the sport subject at school? Those are the questions we want to explore. Besides a survey of documents, we have been seeking answers to our questions through interviews with the team leaders Roland Nilsson and Peter Bergander, the pedagogues/teachers Karin Jutterström and Håkan Jensgård and the professional football player Abgar Barson.Our study shows that the leaders and teachers of today have begun to change their view about individualists.

AbstractThis thesis analyzes the Russian Foreign Policy Doctrine from a broad theoretical perspective, with the aim of describing and explaining the doctrine using a number of theoretical approaches. Russia's foreign policy has undergone substantial changes since Vladimir Putin became president in the year 2000, involving a radical shift in foreign policy objectives and thereby moving away from the more confrontational and distrusting policies which characterized the Boris Jeltsin regime. Putins doctrine, based on pragmatism and seeking partnership and collaboration with the West, can be described as a near revolutionary re-orientation of Russia's foreign policy guidelines, meaning a transformation of the country's self image which implies a rejection of great power status and a search for a new role in the international community.Our thesis has examined explanatory variables such as the domestic political situation in Russia, the contemporary international system and President Vladimir Putins system of beliefs in order to describe and explain the doctrine. Our results show that the doctrine is largely a product of Putins personality, values and beliefs, but also to a large extent a consequence of necessities, namely the poor Russian economy and the fact that the country no longer can withstand an all out conflict with the West involving an excessive arms race.Keywords: Vladimir Putin, pragmatism, realism, domestic politics, radical change..

The aim of this thesis is to critically analyse the subject heading list in the database KVINNSAM at Kvinnohistoriska samlingarna. This list is intended for the retrieval of gender specific information and the subject heading women is implied. The main question is: which woman is represented in the list? The thesis analyses specifically the representation of disability, ethnicity and other sexualities than heterosexuality. Kvinnohistoriska samlingarna, the concept of gender studies and KVINNSAM is presented.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in the European Union (EU) is one of the oldest fields of cooperation within the European Union. During the past decades the different Commissioners have made several proposals about changes in the CAP and many of them have not been passed but renegotiated. The present Commission has however published a report in 2011, which emphasizes that the CAP has three alternative ways to go in the future. This study aims to predict which one of these three alternative ways it is most likely that the CAP will take according to the historical institutionalist theory. When to be able to predict this text analysis is used.

Today?s globalisation has opened up borders between countries as can especially be seen with the opening of the European Union. This has increased possibilities of communication and transportation, which has provided companies with greater expansion opportunities throughout the world. However, difficulties may occur when companies choose to establish abroad, for instance when French companies establish in Sweden through subsidiaries, the lack of knowledge and understanding, when it comes to the business culture, customs, and values within the host country, as well as the culture and the structure within the company, may contribute to misunderstandings and inability to work in an amalgamated manner. These barriers are a cause of unsuccessful penetration within foreign markets.

Our starting point has been to use the football player Zlatan Ibrahimovic as a model person for individualism that seams to break the ordinary socialization pattern in Sweden. The purpose of this study is to examine how the team leaders handle the socialization of more individualistic focused individuals/young persons into groups, since the Swedish School Curriculum is designed to meet each individual on his or hers former experiences. Is the socialization of individuals within team sports affected by their cultural background? And, in that case, should those facts have consequences for the sport subject at school? Those are the questions we want to explore. Besides a survey of documents, we have been seeking answers to our questions through interviews with the team leaders Roland Nilsson and Peter Bergander, the pedagogues/teachers Karin Jutterström and Håkan Jensgård and the professional football player Abgar Barson.Our study shows that the leaders and teachers of today have begun to change their view about individualists.

In this paper Swedish hedge funds and strategies are discussed and analysed. These new financial forms seem to draw recently a huge attention both in media, press and the academic world. The fact is that hedge funds have existed already for a long time but it is still known too little about them. After the introduction of hedge funds, different asset pricing models are discussed including the most basic of all ? CAPM and further Fama and French three factor model as well as the expanding model with conditioning approach.

Social enterprises are increasingly gaining ground as an organisational form in Sweden, however the institutional structures for financing these types of organisations are yet to be established. With its usual origin within the civic society, social enterprises prioritise a higher goal than to maximise economic profit, which often causes these organisations to be dependent upon resources from external constituents within its institutional environment. The aim of this study was to examine how a social enterprise, which derives from the civic society, acts to mobilise resources from constituents in its institutional environment. This was executed through a case study of Jordbro Världsorkester (JVO) - a typical organisation in the civic society which takes the form of a social enterprise - by identifying how assets were used to gain resources in strategic responses to institutional processes and examining how institutional processes affects how JVO acts. Throughout the study, qualitative interviews were conducted with JVO and constituents in its institutional environment and a theoretical framework was developed which explains how capital is used to gain more capital in an emergent strategy of strategic responses as the organisation gets in contact with institutional processes from its institutional environment.

Purpose: The purpose is to examine more closely why the achievement of the environmental goals is so low. To within the thesis work to make this as interesting and with as good quality as possible, especially the environmental quality goal Reduced climate impact, but also Natural acidification and Protective ozone layer, has been chosen to be studied further. Method: A qualitative method and text analysis has been applied. Intervention theory, as Vedung 2009 describes, is used as an intellectual backbone and as a help to structure the essay. The three environmental quality goals correspond cases, or units of analysis. Analysis: The fulfillment of the respective environmental quality goals is analyzed according to its goal, policy instruments, implementation and its effects. To this some of the problems are analyzed that exist on the path to achieve the goals.

Cultural relict plant species from the Nordic countries have been collected by the Nordic Genetic Resource Center (NordGen) for the purpose of conservation. To ensure high seed vitality in store, regular germination tests need to be conducted. It is important to get a correct viability status, but the knowledge of seed dormancy in the cultural relict plants is often poor. The objective of this study was to investigate how seed dormancy is affected by cold stratification. The study includes 31 accessions from 28 species with the purpose of establishing germination protocols.

The climate crisis represents a serious threat to both people and nature and it will exacerbate existing inequalities, especially for women and girls who are most at risk yet have contributed least to the problem. Climate adaptation is critical to addressing the challenges of climate change, and it requires integrating a gender perspective to take into account the specific vulnerabilities faced by women and girls, as highlighted in the Paris Agreement. This study examines the implementation of gender perspectives in Swedish governmental climate change adaptation strategies. By applying a qualitative content analysis to 24 government agencies? action plans, the study investigates how gender equality is addressed in the context of climate change adaptation.

This paper discusses whether the main argument for European countries to stay out of the euro, i.e. the loss in stability from not having a national monetary policy that can be used for stabilization purposes, is still valid ten years after the introduction of the single currency. We analyse the stabilization performances of four largely comparable Nordic countries that have all chosen different levels of European economic integration. In retrospect, the so-called ?stabilization policy argument? seems surprisingly weak.

The purpose of the study is to investigate how much interest media has shown selected topics in the corporate governance systems in Germany and Sweden. The four selected aspects are: ownership structure, employee representation on the boards, disclosure of board members? compensation and female directors on the boards. The reasons for and consequences of the similarities and differences will also be discussed. The German and Swedish corporate governance systems construct the key basis of the study, emphasised on the four chosen aspects.