The aim of this study is to explain and analyse political steering of public libraries in Swedish municipalities and the roles of politicians and administrators in this process. To fulfil this purpose five municipalities have been studied. It is argued that both politicians and administration have to be included in a study of steering and that the relation between politicians and administrators should be seen as an interplay. Planning and evaluation are discerned as the two main activities in the steering process. The material in this study consists mainly of information collected through interviews with library responsible politicians and library managers in all five municipalities.The results show that libraries are considered politically uncontroversial and that politicians see little need for political interference and steering.

Since the 1970s voting behaviour has changed. Party identification and class voting has declined. As the electorate becomes more volatile, campaign strategy and party image becomes essential. Political communication and mass media now play an important role in election campaigns. Therefore, researchers take an interest in the impact of media on public opinion.

This thesis analyzes contemporary Swedish discourse on Russia, i.e. the ways Russia and Russians are perceived in Sweden today. After a summary of historical Western and Swedish perceptions of Russia, and a discussion about the treatment of these tensions within modern research, contemporary Swedish discourse is reconstructed based upon analytical articles in three major newspapers during the period 1992-2007. It is argued that the prevailing image of Russia contains the reproduction of old stereotypes and prejudices. The five major representations of Russia in contemporary Swedish discourse are: non-Western, unreliable, authoritarian, threatening and eternal, with the last one being a meta-representation functioning both as a representation of its own and a mechanism for the reification of the others.

This thesis examines the Swedish labour market with a focus on the immigrant part off the population. There are big differences between the immigrant and particular non-European immigrant part off the population and native Swedes. In the first part off this thesis I will show that immigrants in Sweden have a higher rate of unemployment, lower rate off employment, lower wage incomes, higher risk off unemployment and are overrepresented in low skilled, low status jobs. Even when controlling for different factors such as education level, knowledge in the Swedish language, age etc. a big gap remains.

The conflict in Vaxholm was an important event since it influenced the view upon the Swedish labour market. The entire Swedish model was questioned and questions about what the concept of solidarity stands for and for whom it is meant arose.The Swedish union, Byggnads, was harshly criticised for having acted in a discriminating fashion towards den Latvian workers and the Latvian company Laval un Partneri. The debate in the media was intense.My intention with this essay was to scrutinise the arguments in one of the most prestigious newspapers in Sweden, Dagens Nyheter, and to put the argumentation into a perspective of solidarity. I wanted to investigate how the different parties argued about solidarity. One of the conclusions I drew was that Byggnads needs to question their definition of solidarity and how they wish to express that in a new world more influenced by globalisation and immigrated labours..

Sweden became a member of the European Union in 1995. Consequently Sweden became obligated to implement the Working Time Directive 2003/88/EC (formerly termed 93/104/EC). At that time Sweden considered that their legislation already gave their employees as high level of protection as the directive prescribed. Instead they decided upon an adjustment of the collective agreements concerning working time. A particular EC-restriction was incorporated in the Working Hours Act (SFS 1982:673).

This paper is a critical evaluation of the Swedish system with special mediation. The district court has the opportunity, in cases that are amenable to out-of-court settlements, to refer the dispute to special mediation. However, this is extremely rare, even though the legislature expressed a desire to increase the use of alternative dispute resolution. In 2011, a series of measures were taken to increase the use of mediation and strengthen mediation attractiveness. What effect can be inferred from these actions today, over three years after their introduction? This study analyses the main reasons offered for why mediation is not used more, and what should be done to increase the use of mediation.

The study seeks knowledge about the Swedish euro-scepticism and about the work of the Swedish euro-sceptical Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). How do they work in an environment where the norm is to have a positive attitude towards a future federal state of Europe? How do they regard their own situation and possibilities to make a change?The study includes a debate on today's Swedish euro-scepticism as background. My finding about the MEPs? work is that their way of acting in the European Parliament does not distinguish from other MEPs? in large.

In Jaunuary 1995 Sweden became part of the European Union. Consequently Sweden agreed upon beeing part of a greater integration project with influences of federalism. However, many argue that the discourse that has been been dominant in Sweden is the discourse where we focus on the national state instead of the EU. In my essay I question whether the discourse about ?nationalstatslogiken? is found in the daily press in Sweden.

AbstractEssay in political Science (c-level) by Karin Forsling, Spring 2007A school for the best interest of the child? - The Swedish School System according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.Supervisor: Stig MontinThe purpose of this essay is to investigate how the Swedish governments work with the im-plementation of this convention and what progress has been made. The inquiry of this study is to describe how the changing in the Swedish School System correspond to the national strat-egy for implementation of UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Sweden and how the political protagonists.I have read some of the most relevant documents from the authorities and organisations work-ing with children?s rights in Sweden and papers and communications from the political pro-tagonists.Since UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by Sweden in 1990 the work for implementation has been quite successful but there are still lots to do. There are still some problems in School such as bullying, insulting, insecurity and lack of peaceful and harmoni-ous school environment.

No one believes in Åkesson - a comparative study on the evening press and the publicservice reporting on the Swedish Democrats before the 2014 election.The purpose of this essay was to study how Aftonbladet and Ekot reports about the SwedishDemocrats before the election 2014, as well as comparing the two medias and reasoningabout their agendas towards the party. The tabloid, Aftonbladet, is one of the biggestnewspapers in Sweden, which depends on counter sales and commercials. Ekot, which is apart of public service, is state-funded and regulated by certain guidelines. Using aquantitative method we studied 80 articles, and through a qualitative method, six of thearticles were analyzed to reach a deeper understanding. The theories primary used in thisstudy were agenda-setting and framing, to stress the power of media.

The aim of this paper is to make an investigation of how authoritative conceptual framework about immigrants as a group is being constituted in the discourse regarding Swedish language for immigrants. I will also examine what connections there are to the overarching integration discourse. While doing this I try to establish the contrasting relationship between the ?Swedishness? and ?the Other?. My theoretical framework consists of discussions regarding groups and the relation to homogeneity or heterogeneity in various ways and how We tend to construct the discourse in relation to the Other.

This thesis has the purpose of developing a normative theoretical framework based on different political philosophers and scientists view on deliberative democratic theory, discourse ethics and a modified norm of citizenship. This framework is supposed to contain the ideal communicative situation for people seeking asylum. Hence, the thesis argues that political influence is best practised through communicative rights, and that people seeking asylum are in title to such rights. We conclude that the standards needed to be met in order to reach the ideal are: translators, translated information, arenas for- or channels of communication, language education, and deliberative education. Once the framework is established we focus our interest on the Swedish state.

This thesis contains a wider discussion on the analytical framework of classstudies in political science. The purpose is to put class into the light of a usefulmethodological and theoretical tool when it comes to studies on inequality and political,as well as scientific approaches and explanations to why people have awide range of differences in how they pursue their lives. It is my ambition to discusshow class relations can be theorized and explained within a given context, aswell as in society as a whole. I see the complexity of this field as a resource to enhancethe epistemological as well as the empirical discussions within the politicalscience scholars..

The main purpose of this C-essay is to answer the question: What have been the consequences and effects of the merit point system on language studies and the parties concerned (teachers, students and principals) during the school year of 2010/11?The merit point system is the result of a political decision and was implicated for the first time in the Swedish upper secondary school during the school year 2010/2011. Being a completely new phenomenon it is of great interest and importance to study its effects.The study in this essay also aims to verify, falsify or nullify two hypotheses very often referred to in the political discussions regarding the merit point system:The merit point system will replace affection and interest as main reasons for language studies in upper secondary school and cause a rectification amongst the students choices of additional courses.The merit point system will have a segregating effect upon society and make it harder for people to rise in society through education in the future.A verification of these hypotheses would imply the appearance of an increased rectification amongst students as well as an orientation towards an in the future more segregated society.The empiric material has been collected and examined with qualitative as well as quantitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) and belongs epistemologically to the phenomenological and hermeneutical traditions..