I have studied how network in a broad sense can affect decision-making. The primary purpose is to see if the political initiative somewhere disappears when it comes to understand the relations between power, actors and politics. The study discuss in a theoretical area that concerns the reliability in neoinstitutionalism to use as an analytical instrument. Some criticism is given to the theoretical standpoint in the sense that there is no power perspective included in the theory. I include a discussion about a concept of power, which I include to the theory.

Since the early 1940s in Sweden, subsidies have been a recurring feature in housing politics.Throughout history, these have been used as a management measure to control theconstruction of housing and to promote the Swedish welfare state. The political parties aretoday disagreeing on how much responsibility the state should carry for citizens housing. Tosolve the conflict, the dwelling has to be defined. Is the dwelling to be considered a socialright, like education and healthcare or is the dwelling to be considered a product for the freemarket, driven by supply and demand?The positive population growth in Stockholm has lead to an increased demand for dwellings.The supply of dwellings has not been growing at the same rate, which has implied higherhousing prices and longer wait for rented apartments.

This thesis examines the relationship between recognition of prior learning and the aim to increase social and ethnical diversity in higher education. Recognition of prior learning is a result of educational politics aiming to broaden social and ethnical recruitment to higher education. By examining if recognition of prior learning rather can, and shall, be seen as part of what Pierre Bourdieu calls educational social reproduction I try to question whether it fulfils education policy goals or not. My results show that persons responsible for recognition of prior learning rather recognise knowledge from prior educational institutions than knowledge gained outside the educational system. Considering this, recognition of prior learning does not quite live up to the aims.

It often occurs that the spirit regarding the future as a conservator is rather pessimistic. Howcome that there are so few employed conservators, when the need for conservation obviouslyis big? What kind of changes is needed for a better status regarding the conservation?This thesis concerns the development of the field of conservation in Sweden. What havehappened, what will happen and, particularly, what should happen? The information wasgathered from literature studies and interviews during the spring of 2010.

This paper takes it points of departure in a gender equality perspective and the perceived paradox between the governmental labour market policy and family policy. The first policy area has the aim to put people to work, whereas the other introduces a reform, vårdnadsbidraget, that point in the opposite direction. Which are the problem representations within the two policy areas and are the problem representations concordant or contradictive? From a constructivist perspective, langue is closely related to power through defining and ascribing meaning to reality. Drawing on political documents, speeches and articles formulated within the government, this paper analyzes problem representations through the use of discourse analysis and feminist political theory.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att ge en bild av den livsstil som boende i en ekoby har. Detta har gjorts genom en analys med en teoretisk modell innehållande värden, attityder och handlingar. Två informanter har intervjuats för att ge förståelse för hur värden och handlingar stämmer överens och om det finns genomförda handlingar som inte bottnar i grundläggande värden. Resultatet visar att beslutet att bo i en ekoby är väl genomtänkt och grundas på viktiga värden. Strävan efter att leva ett enkelt liv är det centrala, vilket kopplas ihop med global rättvisa.

In what way has the ethnic housing segregation changed from the 1970´s until today and has the politics concerning these matters dealt with the ethnic segregation as a phenomenon that occur due to free choices of ethnic groups or as a stigmatization and marginalization of ethnic groups? To be able to find out what actual changes there are to be seen in the political measures regarding the ethnic housing segregation from the 70´s until today, I have made a discoursive investigation of some of the states official investigations from each of the decades. I chose to focus on a qualitative analysis and my theoretical framework consists of theories considering grouprights as well as structural and cultural explanations.I realize that the changes have been proportionately high retorically, but the actual changes have not been that obvious. I find a retorical development that has changed from the idea of the great impact of the immigrant in the ethnic segregation process, at the same time as huge differences between groups emerge, to establish a gap between us an them and a stigmatization of ethnic groups. The development somehow seems to have reconnected to the first stage.

This report is a case study of ?citizen forums? in the municipality of Uppsala. These forums are arranged to make people participate more in local politics. The aim of this study is to find out if the opinions and the wishes coming from the citizens are later involved in the planning process etc made by the authorities. The aim is also to explain why or why not the opinions from the citizens are of any importance.My empirical data come from interviews that I have made with seven different respondents, both politicians and civil servants.

The goal of this Master thesis has on the one hand been to create a simulation environment for robots, where not only the simulations in this work can be performed, but also similar robot simulations, and on the other hand to study regulators that can increase the possibilities of rejecting disturbances on an industrial robot. The robot model used has three degrees of freedom, corresponding to the three main links on ABB:s IRB7600. The simulation environment is created using Matlab, Simulink, and Robotics Toolbox. It is constructed in a general way and can be used for simulations of other robot objects created in Robotics Toolbox. A gain scheduling is added to the LQ-regulator, where the feedback matrix is varied depending on the arm position in the workspace.

Central in this paper is Olof Johansson, Swedish minister for the environment, there the focus lye on his resignation from this duty which occurred in 1994. This essay is a case study there I?m trying to identify which ethical reasons which lye behind his resignation. The relationship between politics and ethics is an interesting aspect to investigate and my ambition with this paper is to analyze that relationship in this specific case.The analysis has its focus built on the occurrence of role conflicts and the making of ethical decisions. Aspects like personal ethics versus organisational ethics, objective responsibility versus subjective responsibility etc.

This essay is about the Swedish Royal Foundations and especially the culture foundations. The Swedish Royal Foundations in culture are four. I?ve also made a short background about Royal engagement through foundations in history. I?ve given examples on what Royals in Sweden have done in the past and what they do today.

AbstractIn the past decades the newspaper industry went through many changes but it has never had a problem of this kind. With the freedom the Internet brings us today and the wide range of information channels, the newspaper is for the first time seriously challenged.When the newspapers began to establish themselves on the internet they thought it was only to copy the content of the newspaper on to their webpage and the advertisers would come along. This move was not planed and had no vision. When the advertisers discovered Internets wide range of advertisement platforms they started to look for other places they could put their ads. This thesis is about the local newspapers ability to address the problem that the internet has created. I based my study on the following issues:Why has internet caused this problem for the newspapers?What are the prerequisites for local newspapers when they face challenges from the internet?How have the advertisers acted after the emergence of this challenge?To answer these questions I did qualitative interviews with different personalities within the newspaper industry, two local newspaper executives and two professors in media economics. In conclusion the result shows that there are different opinions regarding these questions and different views of how to solve them.

For centuries it was a crime to be without work or an income in Sweden. Those breaching this law were called vagrants and could be sentenced to forced labor. They stood outside of society in many ways as they were being criminalized. Society's view of them becomes clear by the laws enacted against vagrancy. The investigations that were made in creating the laws do not only say something about society's view of vagrancy, but something about the society itself.In Sweden we have a unique collection of investigations and referrals that are public records through Freedom of the Press.

The main purpose of this study is to examine if variations in voter turnout for the European Parliament elections in each member state is affected by the rate of national party polarization on the EU-dimension of party politics. The theoretical background assumes that a high level of polarization generates higher voter turnout since more alternatives are presented to the electorate. This makes it easier for the electorate to find a party that represents their preferences. This will, in turn, increase the likelihood that they will participate in the election.This study uses a research design based on a quantitative analysis with data from each member state, except those with compulsory voting, in the European Parliament elections of 2004 and 2009. The results of the analysis indicate a relationship between high levels of party polarization and lower turnout in the European Parliament election.

Denna uppsats är en kritisk granskning av Samuel P. Huntingtons modell att förstå världspolitiken utifrån, som han presenterar i boken The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Granskningen utgår från en analys av hans grundläggande begrepp, ?civilization? och ?clash?, och från ytterligare en analys av hur hans modell skiljer sig från andra modeller om världen. Med hjälp av dessa analyser diskuterar jag rimligheten i den tes som han ställer upp och konsekvenserna som hans förutsägelser och policyrekommendationer får, för att sedan kunna bedöma om hans modell är användbar eller inte.