Democracy is said to uphold the dearest values and be the most moral system. But it cannot be characterized as a rigid "syste" but a continuously changing political framework, under which aims and values can be fulfilled - and replaced.The increasingly diverse and ever-changing environment of contemporary democracies forces change upon the systems' natural evolution, which makes their future features uncertain and unforeseeable. A powerful change-force doctrine does however claim change is mainly (or merely) caused by the power of ideas; the elite power over ideas can thus provide a natural foundation for the analysis of the direction of development for democracy. This study aims to provide such a foundation by reconstructing empirical and normative descriptions of democracy at two certain points in time, following extensive government studies.As a tool for analysis, this study identifies values of substantial and procedural character central to democracy theory and discourse. It further creates ideal types of democracy based on these values, to which the nature of democracy is measured.

The role of Islam in integrative work in Swedish societyThe main purpose of this report was to describe the role of Islam in integrative work in Swedish society. Questions connected to the purpose were: Is Islam a possibility or an obstacle to integration? Which arguments are used to describe Islam as a possibility or an obstacle? How are the different views on Islam expressed in integrative work? Which are the consequenses of such views?A qualitative method with an empirical research and a thematic analysis has been applied to the material. The empirical research consists of interviews.The results of this report describe Islam neither as a possibility nor as an obstacle from a political view. By muslims and researchers Islam can be regarded both as a possibility and as an obstacle in integrative work.

In today?s Europe nationalist movements grow stronger. The Scottish referendum is a result of the nationalistic party Scottish National Party?s aim of an independent Scotland. Using a descriptive idea analysis the essay aim to answer how the referendum arose, its main arguments and how national and state identity is affected in the arguments.

This thesis examines the conditions for participation in the decision making process of a possible mine establishment in Storuman municipality in the north of Sweden. This is done through a case study where the main actors are the mining company Nickel Mountain AB, the municipality Storuman and the Sami village Vapsten. As a theoretical framework Cecilia Eriksson?s division of democratic theories is used as a starting point. Methods as described in deliberative democratic theory, such as discussion by effected community members, are seen as a method within the participatory democratic tradition, not a theory of its own.

This research shows and analyses how pupils in ninth grade in the nine-year compulsory school look at being multilingual, at the Swedish language and at Swedish as a second language. I also want to know if language and culture knowledge are taken care of in school as it says in official documents for the Swedish school and as it also is desired in an intercultural education. For my research I do eight interviews in a suburb school south of Stockholm.My work includes a limited account for the current research about being multilingual, Swedish as a second language and about the close relationship between language and culture. The applied theory is a social constructivist theory which in short can be explained like that we construct social structures that have consequences on the individual as well as on the society.I show in my research how the view of the world around the pupils influences their view on their languages, their school and their neighbourhood. I also draw conclusions from my interviews that language knowledge is little appreciated in school and that Swedish as a second language has a low status..

AbstractTitle: Konstruktionen av sverigedemokraternas va?ljareAuthor: Magnus Persson & Max LindbergTutor: Leonor Camaue?rCourse: Bachelor thesis, Media and communication. The aim of this essay is to use a Critical Discourse Analytical (CDA) approach to analyse the construction of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) voters in news articles to see if and how they are separated as a group from the Swedish democratic community. This aim is broken down into two questions.How are the Sweden Democrats (SD) voters constructed in news articles in Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Aftonbladet (AB) regarding the aftermath of the national elections?What differences are there between the portrayal of the Sweden Democrats voters and the agents that are used as opposition to them?To answer these questions we have used CDA. We have taken our approach from a modified version of Teun Van Dijks CDA model for analysing news articles.

Problem definition and purpose: A debated question in journalism today is if the mass media have the power to affect norms and values in the society. There are therefore many who believe that the media must works for democratic and equitable news coverage. Studies have shown that there are still many differences in how women and men are being portrayed in the Swedish media, even if Sweden is one of the most equal countries in the world. This inequality may affect the democracy and equality in the society negative.Previous studies have mainly been using gender as the only explanatory factor to explain the difference of coverage between men and women in the news content. The purpose of this study will therefore not only be to compare the coverage of the Green Partys two spokespersons, Åsa Romson and Gustav Fridolin, from a gender perspective but also to take in count other factors that could contribute to differences in the news coverage.Method and material: To find an answer to the purpose of this thesis a quantitative content analysis have been done on a total of 238 news articles in which Åsa Romson and/or Gustav Fridolin occur.Main results: The results of the content analysis show that Gustav Fridolin occurs more frequently in the news than Romson does, and that the articles he appears in is lager than the articles in which Romson appears.

This essay presents an alternative approach to the predominant democratic analysis of the European Monetary Union. As the Treaties stipulate the political conduct within Monetary Union and put certain restrictions on the European politicians they are to some extent constitutional in their character. Essential for constitutional theory is the concept of precommitment; according to which a decision is made in t1 purposing to obstruct certain actions in t2. In light of this the aim of this essay is to investigate whether or not delegating monetary responsibility to the ECB can be seen as an example of constitutional precommitment and if so, if this constitutional perspective can add something to the predominant democratic analysis of the EMU. According to the author the EMU is by and large a form of precommitment as the leading politicians in Europe figuratively have tied their hands from intervening in the common monetary policy.

The aim with this study was to examine how social service statement in 3 § social-judgements LVU (Swedish care of young persons act) produce ideas about gender. We have taken an interest in the production of both boys and girls and their mothers and fathers because there are clear differences in the description of these. From a historical perspective, the differences between gender in social assessments occurred despite the fact that discrimination is prohibited by law and despite the fact that social service shall work on the basis of an gender equality perspective. In the analysis and interpretation of the rulings we have been inspired by a critical discourse analysis. 30 social-judgements have been analyzed where of 15 concerns girls and 15 involve boys.

This study?s aim was to explore how the social media Twitter is used by Swedish political leaders and how they manage the relationship between having both private and public conversations in a new public sphere, the social sphere. In Sweden, studies in this area are yet to grow. We achieved our aim by responding to our three questions at the issue: What kind of content is published in each of the politicians Twitter stream? Are the politicians private or public persons on Twitter? Are the politicians using Twitters interactive functions? We conducted our analysis by performing a quantitative content analysis.

The discussion regarding international aid tends to be highly debated for long periods of time. Some individuals are very positive towards aid and some individuals are less positive towards aid. This study aims to broaden the understanding of the aspects behind that. The previous research tends to focus on aid allocation within the EU, or which macro factors could influence which donor countries give to which recipient countries. This study aims to add to the research with which aspects at the individual level can influence the individual's attitude towards international aid from the EU.

This thesis focuses on politically active women within The Swedish Social Democratic Women?s Association, also known as S-women. By applying discourse analysis to interviews with active s-women and to meeting conversations between the association?s members, the study approaches ideas of feminism, feminist politics and political commitment. ?Solidarity? ? the central concept of the labour movement ? serves as the point of departure for a feminist discussion about class, gender, ethnicity and age/generation.

Deliberative democracy theory has been prominent within political science research since the early 1990?s, often applied in studies on postnational democratic constellations, in particular the European Union. Of the main institutions of the union, the European Parliament stands out as somewhat understudied from this point of view, which is why the main aim of this thesis is to study the conditions for deliberative democracy in the European Parliament.From deliberative democratic theory four criteria have been selected to function as methodological framework in analysing the institutional structure and proceedings of the parliament. Each of the criteria is applied separately to the practice and function of the plenary sessions, the parliamentary committees and the political groups. The analysis shows that the conditions for deliberative democracy differ between the three fora, as do their respective roles in parliament, but all in all they supplement each other.

Few issues have been exposed in media recently as much as the climate change issue. Afterthe documentary film ?An Inconvenient Thruth? presented by Al Gore was released in 2006,most of the world saw a lot of attention directed towards global warming. This was a turningpoint that is refered to in this dissertation an history-graded critical event, which is assumed tohave a significant impact on peoples lives.The purpose of this dissertation is to examine whether or not political parties in Swedenresponded to this critical event in the way that they, in their party programmes, haveformulated policies related to climate change. Alternatively if media produces an image ofpolitical activity which does not comport with the forming of actual political standpoints.

AbstractEssay in political science, C-level, by Line Säll, spring semester 2007.Tutor: Susan Marton.?To do things by the rule of law -A study in the discretion of front-line bureaucrats?This essay has it´s starting-point in the theoretical problem of social science to unite democracy and bureaucracy. The purpose is to illustrate the problems with the discretion of front-line bureaucrats in a democratic state. The theoretical approach is front-line bureaucracy-theory. Certain characteristics of the work of street-level bureaucrats makes it impossible to severly reduce discretion.