In January 2007 the Öresund committy changed its statutes to become a more politically oriented lobby organization. This change can be interpreted as one part of a continuously evolving process where the Öresund region is emancipating itself from the national states in a multi-level European environment. By focusing on this latest development the thesis puts forward the importance of political institutions, as well as politicians and civil servants as actors in them, as crucial factors in the process where the region is gaining political power. The thesis shows how the political cross-border cooperation in the Öresund region is being institutionalized which affects its power relations to other levels in the multi-level system, predominantly the national states. In other words, there is a connection between power and institutionalization.The Öresund committee has by gaining better access to policymaking agendas on the national levels proven that the organizational change has already started to bear fruit.

IKEA HaparandaTornio employ some two-hundred people in its furniture retail store.Keeping track of staff statistics and employee information has previously been achievedthrough the use of a basic Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheet. The store?s human resourcesdepartment requested an upgrade to this system with the hope of speeding up andsimplifying the administrative process, as well as to make it easier to monitor HR-relatedtarget statistics. The following report documents the development process of that upgrade ascarried out by the author. The project draws on research in usability design and cognitivepsychology to develop a user-friendly interface.

This paper deals with institutional and structural factors' influence on democratic transition in limited multiparty regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa. Comparing the cases Kenya and Tanzania, of which the former has made a transition to democracy and the latter has not, this paper reaches the conclusion that political traditions, the coalescing of the opposition, and the elites ability to learn from the electoral process is essential for a transition to democracy. In the specific cases, the harshness of the Moi regime and the Tanzanian vision of national unity may possibly carry some explanatory power, alongside the pressure from international actors.These results have been reached through the application of a comparative case study, where democratic transition constitutes the dependent variable. It should be noted that a harsh definition of the term transition has been applied, according to which the incumbents actual loss of an election is a necessary indicator for transition. However, the Freedom House and Polity scores have been brought up as complement of this definition.

AbstractThe purpose of this investigation was to understand how teachers/pedagogues nowadays work with mathematics in school. In what way can they pin point the difficulties a pupil with another language might have with mathematics.I started the process of this investigation by reading litterature on the subject. Then I did interviews with several teachers and pedagogues teaching in different schools with children at different ages.The results found in my investegation pointed to a lack of practical work with mathematics especially in classroom and revealed from the teachers a strong desire to work with mathematics in different ways.?Talking maths? with pupils in class will help them understand the subject better. Several teachers are of the opinion that the pupils will reach the goals in school with this method.The teachers are also aware of the importance of having practical mathematics.

Iran och Nordkorea tillhör båda gruppen av skurkstater, även kallat ?ondskans axelmakter?, på grund av deras kärnvapenambitioner. Skäl för att tillförskaffa kärnvapen domineras av säkerhetspolitiska skäl. Vi skall här genom en jämförelse mellan två av världens ?skurkstater? utröna om skälen för ett potentiellt införskaffande härrör från säkerhetspolitiska skäl.

The present state of politics in contemporary Venezuela portrays a country of polarization, a chase for power and accusations of authoritarian and even undemocratic rule. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine the democracy in Venezuela, in order to clarify the sometimes vauge perception of the political situation. By applying the theories of polyarchical democracy put forth by Robert Dahl, one of the most highly regarded theorists on the subject, accordingly the discussion will therefore follow a theoretical framework. Dahl requires seven nstitutions to be guaranteed in a democracy, amongst them the possibility to vote, run for public office and the practise of freedom of speech. Measuring Dahl's levels of institutions in Venezuela, it is made clear that the level of democracy vary in different areas.

This thesis aims at analysing conflicts between different ideals of democracy, using the example of a newly implemented citizen´s initiative reform. This reform gives citizens the right to make policy proposals to Swedish municipal councils. The proposals are to be handled in the same way as proposals from the municipal council members. An ideology analysis of various government documents as well as of an official state study (SOU) is carried out to identify and discuss the ideals of democracy that underpin the reform. The analysis is based on participatory democracy and electoral democracy theory and Arnstein's Eight Rungs on the Ladder of Citizen Participation is used to discuss different types of participation by the citizens.

The aim of this theoretical study is to explain how the notion of the Other and Otherness affect individuals possibilities to form multiple, personal identities. This is done by the use of the theory of the Other and the construction of identities. In my analysis I will be using the power perspective presented by Lukes. The purpose of my study is also to investigate whether a focus on similarity over difference between groups can change the situation for individualsMy study shows that otherness affect individuals identity constructions through stereotyping and categorising. This is made possible by the use of power from outside and inside different groupings.

This paper is a statistical examination about how the European Parliament views questions about equality between women and men. It focuses on how the members understand gender equality depending on ideological standpoint, nationality and gender. In other words, it focuses on whether the politicians have different point of views depending on which parliamentary political group they belong to, which member state they are coming from or which gender (man/woman) they have.Equality between women and men is a complex problem. This paper is concentrating on two questions; the problem about setting up a European gender institute and the problem about gender mainstreaming.The examination, which is a statistical examination about how politicians were voting in both questions, shows that all variables, ideological standpoint, nationality and gender, are determining factors for their voting behaviour in questions about gender equality. Ideological standpoint is the most important variable, second in place is gender and the least important factor is nationality..

The hypocrisy of democracy is to help autocratic rulers to stay in power because it benefits their own country. This thesis examines how the United States of America justified their cooperation with the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during the period of 1953-1979, until he was overthrown by his own people. This case-study doesn´t make general conclusions about the US foreign policy towards other countries except Iran.The theoretical starting point for the empirical analysis is the political dilemma of dirty hands. With the analytical instrument, constructed with a normative analysis about the concept of dirty hands, it´s possible to discover which ethical discipline the American presidents had to uphold to justify their actions.There are three different aspects of their cooperation which are lifted in this thesis. The first one is about the circumstances that made them begin their cooperation, the second regards the features of the cooperation.

This thesis explores the validity of feminist poststructuralist theory in relation to gender and culture. Within the theoretical frame¬work of Judith Butler, combined with insights from the field of post-colonial theory, different perspectives of the dilemma of universalism are discussed. Primary sources for the study are policy documents from the Swedish government, literary texts and newspaper articles. The results show a number of paradoxes which need to be continually and critically kept unsolved. This does not mean an end to feminist engagement in other contexts than one's own but rather the need for theoretical awareness and self reflection.

The aim of this thesis is to ascertain if women are discriminated in the European Parliament, and if so, how it is expressed. Our hypothesis is that female members of the parliament suffer a kind of double discrimination. The European Parliament consists of roughly one third women, but nevertheless the discrimination does not end there. According to our hypothesis women do not have the same opportunity to influence as their male colleagues, hence the double discrimination.The results of this thesis show that women are discriminated, mainly by not gaining access to the European Union's important issues, whilst the female dominated issues are scheduled on late evening and at the end of a session week. Another unsatisfactory issue was that even though half of the reports were given by women, they only received one third of the references to their reports while men received two thirds of the references.

The aim of this thesis is to spread some light over the coming into being of the 2005 Pension Reform in Norway. The point of departure lies within an interest in Welfare State politics and the development in this field. Pensions constitute a cornerstone in the Welfare State. Making use of J. Kingdon´s Theory of the Agenda Setting Process, Discourse Theory and Institutional Theory the thesis seek to visualize the implications of structures, central actors and discourses on the reform processes.

Nigeria är ett av världens mest etniskt mångfaldiga länder. Landet har under senare år, trots ett alltmer demokratiskt styre, erfarit ett uppsving av etniska konflikter. Med en konstruktivistisk syn på etnicitet är orsaken till konflikterna inte given, utan kan elimineras. De nigerianska ledarna har dock inte lyckats med detta, utan snarare gjort problemen än mer komplicerade. Därför syftar denna fallstudie till att analysera civilsamhällets möjligheter och hinder att få bukt med de etniska konflikterna.Genom tillämpande av teorier om inter- och intraetniskt civilsamhälle samt socialt kapital finner vi att civilsamhället, som genom en bred definition är livfullt och heterogent i Nigeria, i dagsläget är för svagt och fragmenterat.

Efter många års kompromissande kommer ett Europeiskt patent med enhetlig verkan (EU-patent) att införas. Tillsammans med skapandet av en enhetlig domstol, kallad Unified Patent Court (UPC), kommer EU-patentet säkerställa en enhetlig patenträttslig tillämpning i alla deltagande länder. I denna uppsats görs först en genomgång av vad EU-patent respektive patent enligt The European Patent Convention (EPC-patent) innebär och hur tvister hanteras. Sedan förs en diskussion kring skillnaderna och deras påverkan på ett fiktivt företag inom bilsäkerhetsbranschen.EU-patentet kommer materiellt inte särskilja sig i någon större utsträckning från det nuvarande EPC-patentet. De stora skillnaderna kommer istället att vara den förenklade ansökningsprocessen, minskade kostnader och det geografiska skyddsomfånget.