The Swedish regions are new phenomena, from the start from the new regionalism which started in the 1980´s. The purpose of the thesis is to analyze Region Skåne and Västra Götalandsregionen to come to a conclusion which model of region they are and want to be by using theories of regional identity and identity of politics and see similarities and differences. My research question is: Which of cultural, administrative and functional region are Region Skåne and Västra Götaland striving to construct?   The methods I have used are qualitative text- and content analysis to analyze the regions, by using theories about regional identity and identity of politics. Furthermore, I am using some statistic from SOM-institutet to analyze the regional identity in the regions.   The result show that Region Skåne is constructing a cultural region, because of their strong regional identity and that the politicians are using identity of politics to combine the citizens.

Vi gör en jämförelse av två teorier som båda behandlar hanteringen av etniska konflikter i plurala samhällen. Dessa två teorier - Consociational Democracy och Transversal Politics, är varandras motsatser och har båda implementerats i etniskt splittrade samhällen. Consociational Democracy som förespråkar mellanetnisk interaktion, har tillämpats i bland annat Bosnien- Hercegovina. Transversal Politics, som har tillämpats i Rwanda, förordar istället icke-etniska politiska plattformer. Båda dessa länder upplevde etniska rensningar under 90-talet, och har sedan dess präglats av försonings- och demokratiseringsprocesser med stor internationell närvaro.

The regime theory is the dominant paradigm in the studies of urban politics in USA. It provides a set of concepts to analyse the change from government to governance in the American local politics. The regime theory postulates that governing power in local government tends to be highly fragmented. The private sector has with its control of economic resources a major influence in shaping governing decisions. In this essay I study the regime theory in a Swedish context to investigate if the theory is pertinent when studying of Swedish local governance.

This study analyzes the political view of criminality and crime politics in three political parties in the Swedish parliament, Socialdemokraterna, Folkpartiet and Moderaterna. The study seeks to describe which kind of view these parties present on the criminality in our society. The material for this study is the ideologies that the parties descend from which are, socialism, liberalism and conservatism, the political programs of these three parties have also been studied as well as the parties proposals, political documents in the Swedish parliament. The current public debate shows that the crime politics is an attractive question and the parties may seem to have similar proposals on how to lower the criminality in our society. The theory that has been used to describe the results of the study is ?actors and structures? and the results are related to this theory as well as the theory has been used as an instrument to explain and sort the material and the results.The results of the study show that the parties are different in their views on criminality as a problem in our society.

This paper examines a popular music song (Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez) as a sign system in television advertising. The study was conducted through qualitative questionnaires in connection to an audio-visual method of analysis called Masking. The method facilitates the analysis of isolated parts in the audio-visual spectrum by masking/hiding parts of the audio-visual totality.The survey had seven respondents where a hermeneutic epistemological approach was used. For the analysis Cooper's theory of brand identity (Practical and Symbolic Attitudes to Buying Brands) was used together with an interaction model for music in audio-visual advertising called "Modes of music-image interaction?.

This essay is about use, misuse and non-use of history in politics. To recognize genocide is a use of history that has been established in politics, but also sparked debate. The position of non-use of history in international policy towards Turkey's denial policy has increasingly been replaced by recognition of genocide as a matter of making up with the story, moral consider, and where fundamental issues of culture, identity, history and morality has become guiding element in the discourse behind European expansion and integration policies. A breakthrough for this change is due to the Cold War's end; since the 1980s it has become possible to realize the humanitarianism which has its roots in the Enlightenment humanism underlying the United Nations, and later the EU conventions on human rights and genocide conventions. A genocide concept has become an important discourse in world politics that puts moral pressure on states to act.

The aim of this thesis is to study discursive change in the Swedish environmental political discourse between 1987-2005. The text of three Swedish budget propositions are analysed for this purpose.The results from the analysis are related to a few relevant theoretical perspectives that hold partly different views on what constitutes ?sustainable development? and ?ecological modernization?. Through these theories the thesis continues the discussion around the two central but somewhat blurry terms sustainable development and ecological modernization. The aim of this discussion is to conclude whether the discursive change in Swedish environmental politics can be said to go more in the direction of sustainable development or ecological modernization, or if elements of both perspectives can be found.The analysis shows that the Swedish environmental discourse has come to include more and more political fields such as general welfare politics, during the period.

Motives and reasons behind a decision to change the asylum process in Sweden are the central concern for this thesis. A symbolic political perspective will be applied in order to elucidate the symbolic factors that have influenced the decision process.The Aliens Appeal Board in Sweden will close down at the end of March 2006 and all pending and future cases will henceforth be decided by three administrative courts. This will be done in order to enhance the principles of legal certainty by making the process more transparent and oral. It is an extensive reform, but since very few amendments are made to the applicable substantive law it raises questions about the actual motives behind the change.One reason that seems to have had a major impact on the decision to close down the Aliens Appeal Board is the fact that the board is perceived as a symbol for an inhuman asylum policy. Transferring the process to the courts might ease the attempt to increase the legitimacy of the asylum process.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediatization of Swedish politics on a municipal level. We live in a world were media affects many aspects of life. One of those aspects is the communication between the citizens and the politicians.Our main research questions are:To what extent do politicians communicate with journalists and who initiates these contacts?Do politicians talk to some types of media rather than others?What factors make a politician choose to speak to media?To what extent do leading Swedish municipal politicians use media strategies?To answer these questions we have used various theories to help us understand media?s role oftoday. First we explain the transformation that has taken part in Swedish media over the last century, from political party press to independent media companies.

Symbolic resources transform in to social power and material resources through the educational system. This entails that all students should have equal access to it.The essay compares Swedish didactics in ?immigrant? and ?white? schools, all situated in socio-economically underprivileged areas, analysing interviews with eight Swedish teachers about their didactics regarding restricted and elaborated language code.Understanding teacher?s work in the class room requires attention to the intersections between race and class, and of both to the distribution of symbolic resources in general.The essay finds that the practice of the? immigrant? school teachers differs from the ?white? school teachers?. The former are active, providing intellectual tools, scaffolding and driving force while the later choose a more passive attitude, letting students decide for themselves what to do and what goals to reach. Consequently ?white? schools allow the reproduction of unequal distribution of symbolic resources while practice in immigrant schools aim to compensate for disadvantages.Practice seems to win legitimacy by different sets of conceptualisations.

The aim of this study is to describe and analyse how young men who have participated in a riot describe their life-situations regarding to their relations to the police, their neighbourhood, employment, the background to the riots and how they use hip-hop as a resistance to subordination. The study is conducted through three semi-structured qualitative group interviews and to some extent field studies. The theoretical points of departure are Slavoj Zizeks theory of violence, which is divided into subjective, symbolic and systemic violence, and subcultural theory. The results of the study show that the young men in their daily life are exposed to by both systemic and symbolic violence, feel secure within their neighbourhood and find themselves harassed by the police. A major finding is that the riot primarily can be understood as an act to get society conscious of their situations, while they found themselves marginalised, lacking employment and youth club.

Right-wing populism has through the past decades flourished in several countries in Europe. Research has shown that right-wing populism is, with its political starting point in ?the people?, focusing on the majority and is sometimes excluding the minorities from the politics. Since human rights regulations are mainly a protection of minority rights, the aim is to examine if the politics of the Sweden Democrats, as a case of a growing right-wing populist party, is a threat to human rights and in that case, in what respects. The thesis is supposed to answer the question in what respects the politics of the Sweden Democrats contravene with the European Convention?s protection of minority rights.

Uganda and Tanzania are two countries severely affected by HIV/AIDS. Hence, there are a numbers of associations for PLHA there. In "Global transformations. Politics, economics and culture", Held, Mc Greew, Goldblatt and Perrton focuses None Governmental Organizations as important actors in the globalized world of today, with increased opportunities to influence and affect the politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate the opportunities for associations for PLHA in Tanzania and Uganda to affect in the national level of politics.

Previous reaserch has indicated that the almoners position in the somatic hospital hierarchy is poor. The purpose of this study was to investigate the position of the almoner in the hospital hierarch today, together with what this position is based upon.The questions at issue were:- Has the almoners position in the hospital hierarchy changed, or is it still poor?- In what way can the almoners position in the hospital hierarchy be explained?In order to get answers to our questions at issue, we interviewed totally 13 persons from the three chosen professional categories, i e four almoners, five doctors and four nurses. Two of the doctors worked at care centres and the other doctors worked in hospitals within the Region Skåne. The interview material was analysed from the concepts of Pierre Bourdieus; field and symbolic capital and by means of ideas from the closing theory.

This is a case study on the functioning of political parties and the aim was to explain ?how? and ?why? the Swedish social democratic party changed their policies in the Middle East politics. I wanted to explain this process of change by using Angelo Panebianco?s framework for the analysis of political parties. Angelo Panebianco´s hypothesis is that all parties must be viewed as organizations to understand their functions.