The aim of this one-year master thesis in archival science was to examine how municipalities take regulations concerning public records into account when they use Facebook. Another aim was to examine the involvement of archivists, registrars or similar staff in the management of the regulations. Since Swedish archival theory and practice has a close connection to the application of these regulations, such an examination was hopefully going to reveal tendencies of importance for archival science. The method used to collect information was a web questionnaire and the result was based on answers from 21 municipalities with an official Facebook page. The questionnaire showed that six of the municipalities regarded documents originating from their Facebook page as public records.

I have investigated how municipalities support children with ADHD. I have interviewed persons responsible in five different municipalities. The persons have had the authority to decide how the support funds are to be shared in the municipality. Mostly I was interested to know if the support was the same in all these municipalities and if the children with ADHD really got the help and support they were entitled to. I discovered that the support varied; in some the children were correctly diagnosed but in others municipalities I was not convince.

This study aims to identify the municipalities of Hallands? methods, guidelines and policies in integration concerning new arrivals of children and teenagers. Some of the new arrivals are under the power of Swedish Migration Board and some of them are by a contract handed over to the municipalities. The evaluation is based on Michael Lipskys street-level bureaucracy which puts its focus on the lower level of bureaucrats meeting with clients. The frame is Skolverkets guideline for education of new arrivals which is more or less a way towards a common policy.

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.

This thesis aims at investigating the two municipality?s Gislaved and Ljungby. Where the aim is to see if there is any connections, between the type and the degree of public-private partnerships, and the municipalities obtained environment performance. In this essay the starting point is that the environmental performance in the chosen municipalities is good.Interviews among local politicians and representatives for the municipalities plastic industries, has functioned as a way to test the hypothesis. Gislaved and Ljungby have thereafter been compared, in order to see if there is any similarity in the sort and the degree of public-private partnerships, and how that will affect the environmental performance. The overall questions in this essay are:How can the cooperation among the chosen municipalities and the      local business life be described? What kind of Public-private partnership      exists in the selected municipalities?Is there any difference between the municipalities, referring to      the degree of cooperation between the municipalities and the local      business life? Does the degree of cooperation affect the progress on the environmental      performance? The end result shows that the local business life doesn?t have any impact on the environmental performance.

This study aims to evaluate the waste management in Norrbottens municipalities in key areas such as possibilities to reach the two national waste goals, information to the public, the effect of legislation, future of waste management and differences in geographic- and demographic areas. The Waste Framework Directive (WFD) issued by the EU and incorporated into Swedish law plays a major part in waste management by defining a hierarchy in five steps how waste should be treated. Interviews conducted with each of the fourteen municipalities aimed to find out what step in the hierarchy they are at and what effect the implementation of EU-legislature into Swedish law has had. Based on the interviews a diverse range of answers was found in relation to the questions asked, generally the more populated municipalities saw a more positive future of waste management, mainly because more developed infrastructure to handle waste is already in place. However the smaller the municipality is the harder it is to allocate resources for waste management and problems arise in the form of expensive transports of waste.

 The 1st of July 2006 Sweden made a change of authorities in the system concerning the reception of separated asylum seeking children. Prior to the change, the Swedish Board of Migration was held completely responsible for the reception of these children, who arrives in Sweden without their parents or any other relatives to care for them. Since the alteration of the law (1994:137) the responsibility for the housing of these children now lies within the Swedish municipalities, while the Board of Migration still handles their legal commissions. The change was intended to fundamentally improve the conditions under which these children were taken care of. However the implementation took a severe wrong turn when the municipalities weren't prepared for their new responsibilities and the immediate result was alarming. This qualitative study is based upon interviews with the people responsible for the reception of the separated asylum seeking children in the municipalities of Kronobergs County, as well as one of the two people in charge of the new system at the Swedish Board of Migration.

The aim of this study is to illuminate and discuss a case of political steering, specifically Managment-By-Objectives (MBO) in Swedish municipalities, from a democratic perspective. The essay examines a discrepancy between MBO in the Swedish municipalities and democratic theory.To fulfil the aim of the study one leading politician and one leading civil servant from five municipalities have been interviewed on this matter. This material is discussed in the light of a democratic theory constructed specifically for this essay. The democratic theory consists of three main democratic values in the democratic process: debate, transparence and the ability to demand political accountability.The main conclusion is that there is a contradiction in the use of MBO and the democratic values of debate, transparence and the ability to demand political accountability. MBO has resulted in a lack of debate and transparency and furthermore, it has made it increasingly more difficult to demand political accountability..

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the revised Planning and Building Act (SFS 2010:900) have influenced the comprehensive planning in Swedish municipalities. A focus is directed at examining how the new law regulates a greater consideration to climate aspects and the what consequences this results in regarding the implementation of the law in Swedish municipalities comprehensive plans.The paper is a case study, containing both quantitative and qualitative methods. The case study is based on three municipal comprehensive plans. Based on quantitative material three municipalities have been selected to constitute the sample of this study. These municipalities are A?lvsbyn, Sollentuna and Olofstro?m.

The main strategy of gender equality policies has since the 1990s been gender mainstreaming. Many government inquiries show how much the Swedish government, provincial governments and municipalities are working with gender mainstreaming. The purpose of this paper is to investigative how the municipalities within the county of Stockholm handle gender mainstreaming demands in relation to other demands that the municipalities face. This is in order to closer investigate the hidden factors that create barriers to gender mainstreaming efforts. Given the study's purpose and the formulation of research question, qualitative method is the most suitable method to fulfill the purpose.

Title: When municipalities are keeping upAuthors: Hansson Käll, Ida; Jonasson, MikaelaTutor: Waks, CarolineCourse: Bachelor thesis, 15hp, Department of Business Studies, HT 2010Background: During the recent years social media has evolved into a powerful communicative medium. From an organizational standpoint social media has become a way for organizations to get closer to, and create a dialogue with, their environment. Swedish municipalities have began to use social media in their daily communication with the environment, but a problem has been raised about how public organizations should organize their social media when formal guidelines from the government are missing.Objective: The objective of this thesis is to examine how eight Swedish municipalities have organized their use of social media due to the lack of official guidance from the government, and also what difficulties that have occurred during this process.Method: The method used is qualitative with data collected through interviews with one respondent from each municipality.Results: The result show that the organizational solutions varies through each municipality but also the choice of social media. It has been important for municipalities to have someone in charge of the new communication tool since social media is a fast and communicative channel. Seven out of eight municipalities have already developed or are in process of developing their own formal guidelines on how to use social media.

Abstract Title:                       Grades at Primary School ? A study of local politicians' arguments in                       connection with the division into grades at Swedish primary schools.Author:                       Annie LinderUniversity of KalmarC-essay in Social StudiesAutumn 2011 The study aims to investigate local politicians' decisions since municipalities took overSwedish primary education in 1990/91. The arguments put forward in support of how stages are organised have been studied, likewise whether municipalities have acted rationally when making their decisions.Six municipalities are included in the survey. They were divided into three educational categories: lower, middle and high level schools; previous and recent schools and F9 schools with pre-schools and primary schools integrated.Minutes from politicians' and civil servants' meetings have been studied and categorised according to arguments for and against. The most common supportive arguments are about economy and organisation, others concern school premises, trends and the wish for a comprehensive compulsory school.

Fiscal policy and its consequences have attracted much attention on both academic and societal level, in Sweden and elsewhere. However, the dependence between fiscal policy on municipality level and business cycles has only recently sparked a debate among Swedish economists. Studies point out that a law which came to force in 2000, balanskravet, may have caused municipalities to lower expenditures, alternatively raising taxes, during recessions. This thesis examines how the level of municipality taxes depends on business cycle fluctuations and the impact that balanskravet has had on this correlation. We employ econometric regressions, with annual data covering the period 1980-2014, to enable an analysis of the dependence between taxes and business cycles, both before and after the introduction of balanskravet.

Abstract Title:                       Grades at Primary School ? A study of local politicians' arguments in                       connection with the division into grades at Swedish primary schools.Author:                       Annie LinderUniversity of KalmarC-essay in Social StudiesAutumn 2011 The study aims to investigate local politicians' decisions since municipalities took overSwedish primary education in 1990/91. The arguments put forward in support of how stages are organised have been studied, likewise whether municipalities have acted rationally when making their decisions.Six municipalities are included in the survey. They were divided into three educational categories: lower, middle and high level schools; previous and recent schools and F9 schools with pre-schools and primary schools integrated.Minutes from politicians' and civil servants' meetings have been studied and categorised according to arguments for and against. The most common supportive arguments are about economy and organisation, others concern school premises, trends and the wish for a comprehensive compulsory school.

This study aimed to explore the perceived role and mandate of civil servants employed in municipalities in Kronoberg county. The study aimed to answer the question whether civil servants engaged in municipal economics have different perspectives on their mandate and role based on how said civil servants implement and manage policy tools available in Swedish municipalities. The study aimed to through policy tools theory explain how civil servants through four categories view the policy tools employed in the municipality. The study is based on the reasoning that policy tools influences exercise of authority that in turn influences view on policy tools. In order to study civil servants perspective on perceived mandate and role interviews were conducted with a sample of civil servants from each of the eight municipalities in Kronoberg county.