AbstractAt the UN Conference on Environment and Development in 1992 the nations stated that traditional environmental policies were not sufficient to handle the multidimensional challenges posed by sustainable development. Governments needed to broaden their political decision making procedures in order to coordinate and integrate environmental, social and economic policies. Therefore a new tool was introduced in Agenda 21, National Strategies for Sustainable Development (NSDS). The aim of an NSDS would be to bring together actors from all parts of society to jointly reach a consensus on how to work towards the vision of a sustainable society. An NSDS would be seen as a strategic tool to help focus national policies for SD.

When Deng Xiaoping introduced his reform program, he began China's transition from a plan economy to a socialist market economy. Liberal theorists often argue that there is an automatic link between ?free market? and ?democracy?, however this link is not evident in China. This contradiction constitutes the problem area of this thesis.With a theoretical framework containing ?totalitarism? and ?Tang Tsous culturalist approach? I have analysed the leadership of CCP (China's Communist Party) and its strategies to maintain the Chinese political system.

On the 8th of May 2007 a local power-sharing goverment consisting of Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) was formed in Northern Ireland. The aim of this dissertation is to explore why the DUP, who in the past have opposed all forms of power-sharing decided to form a goverment and take active part in a power-sharing agreement. The study is based on a consociational theoretical framework developed by Arend Lijphart and further developed in a Northern Irish context by John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary. Using this theory the study seeks to understand the broad conditions surrounding the DUP's power-sharing. After a description of consociational theory and the road leading up to the Belfast Agreement,three possible explanations for power-sharing, based onconsociational theory are discussed.

Fair trials? rights under Swedish law of public administration (FL) are regulated by Article 7 of the Statute. Similarly, fair trials? right under the European Convention of Human Rights (EU Convention) is regulated by Article 6.1. The essay conducts a comparative study of the two legislations and seeks to determine whether Article 7 of the Swedish law of public administration is consistent and compliance with Article 6.1 of the EU Convention.

The purpose of this essay is to examine Egyptian university students´attitudes about the Egyptian education system´s ability to support a democratic process in Egypt. In order to carry out my study, scientific books and articles have been read and interviews have been made among Egyptian university students. The interviews contained questions about the Egyptian education system´s impact on the democratic process in Egypt and which impact the Egyptian education system has had on the Egyptian revolution.The conclusion drawn from my study is that Egyptian university students find the contemporary Egyptian education system based on authoritarian rules and with a lack of democratic values. The Egyptian university students believe that to establish democratic institutions in Egypt, the Egyptian citizens need a better understanding about democratic values. However, some of the students believe that the democracy that should be established in Egypt, must be based on Islamic values and to succeed with that, Islamic studies must play a greater part in the Egyptian education.When it comes to the Egyptian education system´s impact on the Egyptian revolution the Egyptian university students´opinions were somehow divided. .

SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] penetrated China in spring of 2003, created havoc in the social society, exposed weaknesses within the political system and pushed the nation towards a crisis of confidence. At the same time the crisis revitalised the Party's position, brought people from different social stratum together and had a beneficial impact on the populace's knowledge on health related issues.What makes the SARS crisis in China interesting for further and deeper investigation is the method it chose to respond to its national crisis. They plan of response was indeed a retrogression back to "older" times, using methods and propaganda very much like those used during Mao Zedong and later Deng Xiaoping. The first step of response was denial and cover up of the real situation, which quickly turned to unprecedented transparency, as the magnitude of SARS became known. The Party and the government were quick to proclaim themselves as the bearer of the key knowledge and information on how to best fight the disease, this in sharp contrast to the political trend of more co-operation between the private and public sector and political transparency.

Researchers in the field of political corruption generally expect voters in democratic states to lose trust in corrupted politicians. However, there are cases where corrupted politicians maintain their popularity, a phenomenon studied in this thesis. Focus lies on three cases of political corruption: the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who has been the subject of several judicial investigations and court cases; the impeached former president of Lithuania, Rolandas Paksas; and the German Christian Democratic Union's (CDU) involvement in a party funding scandal. The cases are chosen based on the method of agreement. Berlusconi, Paksas and CDU have all, in spite of their corrupt behaviour, kept or regained popular support among a large group of their country's citizens.

The purpose of the thesis is to examine the relation between art, politics and ideology in contemporary art, focusing on the drawings depicting Mohammed the prophet as a dog, made by the Swedish artist Lars Vilks. His work is contextual in accordance with current art practice, thus letting everything related to the artwork become part of it, a circumstance the thesis tries to grasp in the widest respect possible. The drawings were published and spread throughout Swedish media, where they were later defended and criticized by a number of writers. Many debaters argued that the art work represents Western freedom of speech, and that to criticize them is to criticize fundamental democratic rights. This discourse tended to disqualify all arguments that questioned why such force was put into defending and spreading offensive pictures.

Why participate? Many studies focus on explaning non-participation in politics. The political parties are loosing members and the particiaption of young people are given extra attention. This thesis is about young people who do participate in party politics. The question is how they experience their participation and how they feel that they can have a politcal influence by being a member of the youth section of a political party.

?Liberal Democracy? is a common term in political theory, and it is used as if it had a commonly accepted referent, with both normative and descriptive content. This is certainly the case in democratic theory, where it on the one hand seems to refer to a normative democratic model; on the other hand it is used descriptively, to refer to real-life democracies. The deliberative democratic sub-field is not an exception; on the contrary, the term is frequently used albeit rarely defined; yet the concept it refers to is supposedly developed enough to allow detailed propositions about its citizens?s political behaviour.This essay is an attempt to analyze how Liberal Democracy is used by three deliberative democrats (Jürgen Habermas, John Dryzek and Stephen Elstub), in order to understand the democratic model (or models), whether normative or descriptive, they refer to.

A controversial party?s entry into parliament - a review of Expressen?s depiction of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna)The purpose of this essay was to study how Expressen presents the Sweden Democrats, as well as reasoning about the effects this depiction could have on the citizens? opinion. Using a quantitative method I studied 122 articles, and through a qualitative method four of these could be further analyzed to reach a deeper result. The theoretical perspective that was applied in this study was primary agenda-setting and framing theory, to illuminate the power of media. The result showed that a prominent theme was to present Sweden Democrats as racists.

AbstractTitle: The Sweden Democrat is coming! ? A quantitative study of the framing of the Sweden Democrats in the local press during the month of the parliamentary election in 2010 (Sverigedemokraten kommer! ? En kvantitativ studie av hur Sverigedemokraterna gestaltades i lokalpressen under månaden för riksdagsvalet 2010)Number of pages: 41 (42 including enclosures)Author: Tobias EnefalkTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: This essay seeks to study how the Swedish political party the Sweden Democrats was framed in Swedish local press during the month of the parliamentary election in 2010. The study is based upon eight local newspapers located in the municipalities where the voting result for the Sweden Democrats increased the most and the least.Material/Method: The material consists of 263 articles from eight different local newspapers gathered from the month of September 2010 (the month of the election). Using a quantitative content analysis and a cluster analysis inspired by Matthes & Kohring, a comparison of the framing is made between the different newspapers. The results of this comparison are then analyzed and discussed by applying theories of political communication, media logic and framing.Main results: The results show that some similarities and some differences occur regarding the framing of the Sweden Democrats between the different newspapers.

The main objective of the essay is to define the meaning of the termgovernance network on the basis of democratic values ? both normative andimperial - with the aim to analyse the prospects to develop an effective anddemocratic governance. Democratic values as well as civil participation,enlightenment, responsibility and approachability are discussed, but also moreeffectivness orientated values.It is clear from the presentation how normative and democracy models putdifferent values in focus, with the consequence that other values are played downor pushed aside. Compared to imperial research in partnership ? by definition atype of network arrangement - and with a starting point in democracy andefficiency, the networks are discussed as political formation.In what sense can the actual existing network arrangements meet and fulfil thedefined political values? As no straight forward answer exists, there is an ongoingconflict between the political demand for slowness and the effectiveness demandfor flexibility and mobility..

The main purpose of this paper is to examine and compare the democratic situation and developement in Malung and Nyköping, through a perspective of participatory and deliberative democratic theories. The questions I?ve examined are On what priorities the actions of developing democracy are built? Which positive effects have been reached and what problems have arisen? What are the solutions they have found to the problems? How does one experience the results of the experiments and actions taken? What are the similarities and differences between the two cases? and What is their relationship to the theories mentioned above?The questions are answered through interviews with four central actors in each case and examined in relation to participatory and deliberative democratic theories and in comparison of the two cases.The results have been that even if none of the cases respond to one theoretical ideal, they have touches of both theories as well as representative theory. It shows, however, that in Malung the representative democracy theory is the strongest represented in actions and politics, while in Nyköping the participatory democratic theory is stronger. In short, the most positive and negative effects respond well to the theories..

The main purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent municipalities in Sweden use democratic innovations to include citizens in the decision making process. Along there are three research questions:? What different forms of democracy innovations are Swedish municipalities applying in order to increase the civic participation between elections and what forms are dominant?? What potential influence in decision-making are citizens getting through these democratic innovations based on the results?? Based on the results ? in what ways is the democracy innovations used in municipalities challenging representative democracy? The method used to fulfill the purpose and answer the research questions is a web survey including 287 of 290 (in total) municipal websites. The theoretic framework includes a model which is called ?Smith?s ladder of participation? and is influenced by the research of Graham Smith and Sherry Arnstein.