Since the mid 60?s, Germany has seen dropping fertility rates and yet next to nothinghas been done to combat this trend until the current regime led by Angela Merkel andher minister of family affairs, Ursula von der Leyen initiated a number ofcomprehensive reforms of Germany?s family policies.Family policy in Germany is being reformed in three ways. First of all parents arenow eligible to receive substantial financial support in order to compensate the loss ofincome associated with a pregnancy and or parental leave. Second, the all but nonexistentpublic child care services are being vastly expanded with the goal of beingable to offer child care service for every child age 0-3. Thirdly the tradition of schoolsending classes midday is being reformed with the aim of letting kids stay in schoolmuch longer thus enabling parents to work full-time as opposed to part-time in orderto be able to take care of kids returning from school.The hopes for these ambitious reforms are tremendous.

On the first of January 2012, a new public authority was formed in Värmland, due to a new legislation on public transport. The first task for the new public authority was to produce a plan for the development of public transport. In order to do so, it had to execute an extensive consultation process about the long-term goals of public transport. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a public authority can use a consultation process as a means to clarify accountability and produce unified goals. To answer that, I have done a case study about how the new regional public authority in Värmland for public transport has acted in the process of writing a plan for the development of public transport.

This bachelor thesis is based on interviews with staff from three Egyptian NGOs in Cairo during the spring of 2013. The study examines how three Egyptian NGOs discuss the woman?s situation within the Islamic legal discourse in the contemporary Egypt. The empiric material was analysed through a theoretical framework of gender in Islam, and a discussion of the concept of human rights laws in a local context.The respondents emphasize the societies gender stereotypes as obstacles in the discussion regarding women?s rights.

This masters thesis investigates the relation between China and the Information Society as it is manifested in the UN conference the World Summit on the Information Society WSIS. The first phase of this two-phase conference took place in Geneva 10-12 December 2003, with two documents, Declaration of principles DP and Plan of action PA, as main results. The information policy is central to an authoritarian rule in its efforts to keep control over the national identity. The thesis investigates the impact that the information revolution and Internet might have on the Chinese national identity through the acceptance of DP and PA in various aspects. With the use of the information science theories by Manuel Castells and Frank Webster, the vision of WSIS was compared with the Chinese information policy.

In the essay the author examines how pilgrimage can be used as a tool to radicalise democracy in a late modern society marked by neoliberalism. Applying a dialectic perspective on social movements the essay puts forward how the pilgrimage movement Pilgrim?s Walk for Future, administrated by Church of Sweden, is working in line with the historical pilgrimage theology - a modern critical ecclesiology- to mobilise political action to prevent climate change. The result of the study shows how PWFF meet the neoliberal hegemony with a mobilisation of alternative values beyond the order of capitalism, in line with Christian theology and tradition. The mobilisation is made possible by new forms of identifications with oneself and the social world that meet a modern power/knowledge- regime based on rational thought, and which questions norms and practises by paying attention to their negative effects on nature and on human life in general.

Since 2003 Saudi Arabia is under attack from domestic Al Qaida-cells which, by random shootings of westerners and bombings of compounds and official state buildings, is trying to challenge the stability of the royal regime. According to Al Qaida, the Royal family is attacked because of their friendly relations to the US and for not implementing Islam in the Saudi society as profound as they ought to. Political analyst finds it obvious that the Islamic Al Qaida-cells by terrorism is trying to erode the stability in the kingdom.An important foundation for stability for any government is legitimacy. The aim of this thesis is to examine the royal legitimacy strategy in the state bureaucracy of Saudi Arabia. The question at issue is: how has the royal family constructed the civil, military and religious bureaucracies to maintain and promote stability and legitimacy?The thesis focuses on the on three different units within these three bureaucracies and it surveys the way they are staffed and organized to strengthen and maintain legitimacy for the royal family.

The purpose is to explore and describe norms and values concerning emotions and emotional expression inSweden and Greece from an emotionsociological perspective. Do emotional regimes on a national level existand if they do, how do they differ? To answer this question qualitative interviews have been conducted withnine Greek/Swedes, men and women of different ages, who have lived in both countries and who speak bothlanguages. A quantitative survey study, employing a survey previously used in a Swedish study about emotions,has also been undertaken. Previous studies have shown that emotional regimes do differ historically and acrosscultures, but no study so far has focused on the differences between examples of North European and SouthEuropean cultures.The theoretical framework consists mainly of Hochschild´s theories about feeling/display rules and emotionwork, but the analysis also draws on Collin´s theory of interaction ritual chains and on Sociology of Emotionsmore broadly.The results suggest that different national regimes can be distinguished primarily in terms of display rules andin the skills of emotional alternations.

The aim of this master's thesis is to describe the role of language and culture as ethnical identification factors and illustrate how these have been used as political weapons by the Serb regime in Kosovo during the last decade. The thesis discusses the concept of ethnicity, the relations between the politics of identity, nationalism, ethnic mobilization and the importance of language and culture. Kosovo has historically been characterized by severe ethnic antagonism between Serbs and Albanians. Different languages, cultures and religions beside political processes led to ethnic cleavages that paved the way for ethnocentrism, ethnonationalism, chauvinism, ethnic cleansing and civil war. Since 1989, the Serbian authorities have intervened in all important spheres of life, in an attempt to Serbianize Kosovo.

Hägglunds Drives in Mellansel, Sweden, manufacture radial piston hydraulic motors foremostwithin applications in the industry. These motors have several sliding contacts, one of these, isthe contact between piston ring and cylinder bore. The radial piston hydraulic motors advantageis to produce high torque in very low rotation velocity, this result in that the maximum slidingvelocity between piston ring and cylinder bore, during the whole stroke, is very low. Theconsequence of this low sliding velocity is that the contact between piston ring and cylinderbore, during the whole stroke, is bound to the boundary lubrication regime. This result in, thatthe piston ring is exposed to wear, thus affect the service life of the complete hydraulic motor.To minimize wear of piston ring, it is essential to determine the oil film thickness between thepiston ring and cylinder bore.

The idea behind this project came from a feed study executed two years during the lambing season. Both years wool loss was experienced. Low temperature in combination with shearing was believed to cause the wool loss the first year, while protein deficiency was believed to be the cause the second year. In the literature many causes of wool loss are described; mechanical wear, telogen effluvium, bacterial dermatitis, external parasites, wool break, scrapie, genetic causes and nutritional deficiencies are some examples. The aim of this thesis was to study causes for wool loss and how common wool loss is in Swedish sheep herds.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate and analyze history teacher's didactic choices in the conflict between unequal educational materials and the requirements of equality in the curriculum of Swedish secondary school. The empirical data consists of interviews with five secondary school history teachers, observations of their lessons as well as analysis of their tests. The starting point was to investigate teachers' didactic work in the role as a bridge between the non-equal historiography presented in textbooks in history and the curriculum?s demands for equality. Three different approaches have been observed in the teachers' didactic work when considering gender perspective into their teaching: that women become extensions in a male-dominated historiography; that another part of the story is presented when a gender perspective is considered; and that the gender perspective is included in history teaching and becomes an integral part of all the content of the subject.Several of the teachers acknowledged that gender equality is less prioritized than the courses core content and related assessment criteria.

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..

This essay is a product of the author?s interest in silent films from Soviet, especially, documentary films. Before the 1920?s documentary filmmaking had mostly been limited to newsreels and short scenes. Only occasional feature-length documentaries had been made.

Per Wahlöö is one of Sweden´s most famous crime writers. Together with Maj Sjöwall he revolutionized the swedish crime novel in the mid-sixties with the Martin Beck-series. Before that he was working as a reporter in the fifties and started writing novels about the oppression of man, power and totalitarian mentality in the end of the decade. Those novels (1959-1968) are called ?The dictatorship?-series.

The transition from having been under another country?s control to becoming a democratic country can, many times, pose difficulties, which has proven itself to be quite common. Estonia and Moldova?s processes towards a democratic regime are two examples of countries with varied success in the final transition phase.When the USSR (Soviet union) fell and collapsed in 1991 Estonia was well on their way from having a communistic ruling to a democratic one due to the fact that their democratic work had already begun a few years prior to 1991. After the collapse Estonia continued with their democratic work and in 2004 the country became a EU member state.