After the tsunami disaster in December 2004 many arguments were heared that one oft the major reasons behind the poor Swedish effort connected to the evacuation and health care of the Swedish citizens in Thailand right after the incident is the Swedish model with independent government authorities. By comparing the constitution, the political decision making tradition by the ministers and the handling of the catastrophe in the tree Scandinavian countries Denmark, Norway and Finland, plus analysing the behaviour of the Swedish foreign and prime minister from a rational choose inspired individual decision making theory the research shows that there is no proof that a constitutional change in Sweden into the traditional model with government authorities controlled by the ministers alone would led to a more effective crisis handling by the government due to crises concerning Swedish citizens out states. Although the research shows that the constitution and the tradition of decision making in the government provides the basic condition of the ministers individual rational decision making.

A current debate is going on in Sweden about the health-care organization, how it is structured today and how it should be structured in the future. Despite major changes in the county council structures, they still got problems with for instance economy and the providing of staff. As an answer to these problems new solutions are being developed.In this thesis I examine such a solution consisting of cooperation between county councils. The aim of the thesis is to examine how and why the county councils in Sörmland and Västmanland have made a decision regarding cooperation over the administrative border.My contribution is to construct a model over change and decision processes that can be used in other cases as well. The conclusion is partly that the decision to cooperate is built on changing structural factors, such as economy, demography and medical development.

This essay constitutes a qualitative case study about democratization theory and the middle class in Russia. This is a very important case to study, especially because of the geographic position of the country as well as the economic importance Russia has as a part of the G8. In the essay the author seeks to answer the question whether the lack of a significant middle class in Russia can be a part of the explanation to the absence of a well functioning democracy in the country. Several democratization theories are presented. The most important being Ruth Berins Collier's theories about ins and outs plus the elite- or working class as the initiator of democratization processes.

Monroedoktrinen skapades 1823 av den amerikanske presidenten James Monroe. Sedan dess har doktrinen utgjort en betydande del av den amerikanska utrikespolitiken gentemot Latinamerika. Medvetet eller omedvetet har doktrinen blivit en integrerad del i den amerikanska säkerhets- & utrikespolitiken. Genom Monroedoktrinen och dess korollarier har USA haft en förevändning att intervenera närhelst de ansett att intressena, som ska tillvaratas i doktrinen, har utmanats. Vi har i denna uppsats valt att analysera tre fall av amerikansk intervention i Latinamerika med målet att finna en gemensam drivkraft bakom amerikansk utrikespolitik i Latinamerika.

This thesis compares different justifications of human rights with the philosophy of Axel Hägerström. Hägerström´s philosophy uses a strict logic and discards the notion of the existence of absolute values and moral right and wrong. The justifications that are examined are those of Robert Nozick, Alan Gewirth and the postmodern view. Nozick emanates from arguments of natural law, which is rejected by Hägerström as metaphysics. Gewirths logical justification emanates in part from moral arguments and hence differentiates from Hägerström, but it can be used for constructing a practical application of Hägerström's philosophy and thereby motivate a legislation relating to human rights.

The purpose of this project was to find an understanding for why public agents working with introduction of immigrants have decided to co-operate and co-ordinate their efforts. Another purpose was to gain insights in what characterizes this co-operation.Seven interviews were made with practitioners working with these questions on national-, regional- and local levels. The material gathered in this process was then analysed using governance theory and more specific the parts dealing with Joined- up government and Whole- of Government. Two analytic tools were used in the analysis: wicked problems and network.The first of these, wicked problems, was made operational by the use of insecurities. Analysing the interviews along these lines proved very useful in explaining why public agents have decided to try to work together.

My thesis brings up the subject of power. In the 33 local authorities we have in Skåne, I have made a quantitative study, to see how many young people that are included in the power of politics, through local authorities parliament. This is the first of the two parts that I have devided my thesis into. The second part is qualitative and examines four young politicians, and their thoughts on holding a position that is so unusual to hold at their age. This is the basis for my analysis where I bring up age as a form of discrimination.

The aim of this thesis is to develop two idealtypes of politics to help serve as instruments in understanding and analysing the view on politics held by top civil servants in the municipality of Lund Sweden. The two ideal types developed here are symbolic sense making politics and rational instrumental politics. These two ideal types were applied to material from a qualitative survey to help bring out clear results and to help with the interpretation of the material The results of the study showed that the two idealtypes could not help to clearly categorize the civil servants views on management by objectives. But while categorizing the top civil servants views the important features of policy documents the ideal types were helpful. By using the ideal types I came to the conclusion that the view on policy documents was mainly characterized by sense making politics.

This thesis is set out as a testing of the crosscutting cleavages theory on twocontemporary cases. The aim is to test the explanation process of the crosscutting theory applied to the political and social situations in Belgium and Switzerland and furthermore to examine potential conflicts in pluralistic states. Our main questionis: How can the crosscutting cleavages theory explain the different outcomes ofsocial coexistence, even with the states numerous similarities? We have examined the two federal states through their social divisions of language, region, religion and socio-economy. Our findings show that both Belgium and Switzerland possess divisions in the above mentioned variables, which in most cases are cumulative structured.

I denna uppsats analyseras de faktorer som ligger bakom beslutet att låta Turkiet inleda inträdesförhandlingar med EU. Dessa faktorer analyseras utifrån Allisons tre modeller: Rational Actor Model, Organizational Behavior och Governmental Politics. Modellerna beskriver olika komponenter som låg till grund för beslutstagandet.I vår analys belyses först de statliga aktörerna och deras motiv för att ge Turkiet kandidatstatus och ett datum för eventuella förhandlingar, enligt Rational Actor Model. Därefter belyses de organisatoriska strukturerna bakom EU och dess inverkan på det faktiska inledandet av förhandlingarna enligt Organizational Behavior. Slutligen nämns kortfattat Governmental Politics, som behandlar nyckelpersoner och förhandlingskonstellationer, eftersom modellen ej kunnat genomföras i sin helhet.Uppsatsen har som uppgift att tillämpa de olika modellernas styrka i den specifika fallstudien och utgör en ny syn inom europeisk integration..

AbstractI denna uppsats analyserar vi två riksdagsdebatter som båda uppstått då yrkande inkom till regeringen om ändringar i Yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen (YGL) samt ändringar i tryckfrihetsförordningen (TF). På tidigt nittiotal uppdagades det i Sverige ett antal pedofilhärvor. Detta resulterade i en omfattande offentlig debatt som vidare bidrog till att yttrandefrihetsbrottet barnpornografi, helt och hållet lyftes ut ur YGL samt TF. På sent nittiotal förekom ännu en debatt som även denna behandlade yttrandefrihetsgrundlagarna. Denna gång handlade det om brottet hets mot folkgrupp, och det eventuella tillägget, sexuell läggning.

The aim of this thesis is to seek understanding to how a national identity is constructed. Five women and five men at the age of 21-37 years old have been interviewed during November 2005 and January 2006. All of them lived Oslo at the time. The informants have been divided into two groups, `Swedish immigrants` and `Norwegian immigrants`, none of the people interviewed is ethnic `Swedish` or `Norwegian`. The empirical material has been analysed with the help of Billig´s theory about banal nationalism and Laclau and Mouffe´s discourse analysis.

During last autumn I have been studying the conflict between Israel and Palestine, both through books and at place in the area. The purpose has been to evaluate and reflect over EAPPI`s achievement (Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel) and how it`s related to the goals of the organization. EAPPI is an interesting organization, mainly because it stands as a third part in the conflict. I have used a qualitative method for interviews and observations. The accompaniers, whom I have interviewed, represent three of seven placements in Israel/Palestine.

The aim of this thesis is to explain what actions Sweden and the international communities have been taking in terms of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) in order to realize the Programme of Action from the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo 1994. In a theoretical perspective, donor countries and multilateral organizations are seen as interacting actors involved in global development cooperation. Through applying a human rights approach I will show shortages in terms of supplies to contraception, international agreement on the issue of safe abortions and a new era that comes with new rules for aid and development cooperation. In addition, for human rights to be realized there is the feature of accountability. Without accountability, SRHR cannot be fully respected, guaranteed and protected.

Trots att den svenska policyn, för skydd av nationella minoriteter, infördes med hopp om att lösa vissa problem hävdas i denna uppsats att annan problematik kan ha uppstått i dess kölvatten. Både vad gäller motiv och innebörd kan delar av policyn ses som problematiska, vilket i huvudsak grundar sig i att det har skapats en skillnad mellan olika etniska minoriteter. Policyn innebär att särskilda åtgärder vidtas för att skydda vissa kulturer. Vi sluter oss till åsikten att kulturer är centrala i människors liv, och just därför anser vi det motiverat att diskutera kring vilka etniska minoriteter som inte får tillgång till detta skydd. Vi menar att denna diskussion saknas i svensk policy.