The aim of this thesis is to examine the properties of the municipalities in Sweden that influence the choice of being a certified Fairtrade city. The independent variables which are used in the statistical analysis are municipal governance, local tax rate, whether there is an university and/or university college in the municipality, average income and higher education in the municipality. The variables are examined by logistic regression. Since there are no statistical data on ethical procurement, this exogenous variable isn?t included in the regression.

This master?s thesis is about freedom of information ideas in the European Union data retention directive, 2006/24/EC. The directive means that data about electronic communications services will be retentioned. The aim of the thesis is to examine what ideas related to freedom of information that appear in the directive and how these ideas belong to the ideology of freedom of information that is common within the library community and to the juridical restrictions. In the light of surveillance tendencies that have occurred over the last years, the most well-known is probably the USA Patriot Act, it is interesting to study how freedom of information ideas appears when surveillance is legislated.

AbstractVäxjö University, School of Social SciencesBachelor thesisTitle: Varför en rädsla för alternativmedicin? En studie om hur EU?s kosttillskottsdirektiv har implementerats i Sverige.Author: Annica BlomstrandSupervisor: Anne Haglund-MorrisseyThe aim of this study is to investigate the process of legislation and implementation of the directive of the European Union on the food supplements, focused on member state of Sweden.There are two questions in this study: What was the process of legislation in the period when the Directive on the food supplements became established? and How does the implementation of EU?s decision on the food supplements works in reality? In order to answer these questions, two different methods were used. One was qualitative analysis of the available text and the other one case-study (qualitative including interviews)The conclusion is that the implementation has not been successful. The process of legislation has followed its traditional way, which in its turn did not leave so much space to the thorough implementation of the Directive. Unfortunately, this is a process that overlooks citizens and countries with different premises, affected by the decision.Keywords: EU, kostillskottdirektivet, lagstiftningsprocessen, implementering, organisationsteori, fallstudie.

Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union a lot of hope has been put on civil society to help develop Russia into a more democratic society. This study explores the constructive elements in the relationship between civil society and the state in Russia, and how this enables the work toward political development. By using Julie Fishers theory about political development and organisational autonomy I discuss the varying and often complex ways in which civil society and the state interacts. These are often not mentioned in the liberal tradition, which believes that civil society's most important democratic function is to act as a watchdog for the state.There is very limited political space for NGO's in authoritative Russia. The existing oppositional NGO's are important for the political development, but they are few and their impacts on society are limited.

The aim of my master?s thesis has been to examine the situation of the price lists in the National Library of Sweden, in Uppsala University Library and in the Nordiska Museet Library. The starting point was that the institutes have been operating within different institutional practices. These operational differences between the institutes have affected the collecting, the organizing and the accessibility to the information of the price lists. My master?s thesis is based on Birger Hjørlands theories of domains and knowledge organization.

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.

Har NAFTA-avtalet (North American Free Trade Agreement) som 1994 ingicks mellan Mexiko, USA och Kanada, haft de effekter på den mexikanska jordbrukssektorn, speciellt dess majssektor, som kan förväntas i enlighet med nationalekonomisk teori? Detta är den huvudsakliga forskningsfrågan som denna uppsats försöker undersöka och besvara. Min slutsats är att i fråga om Mexiko är svaret i huvudsak beroende på vilka producenter man väljer att studera. När gäller dess majssektor är effekterna av NAFTA på de konstbevattnade producenterna, företrädesvis i norra Mexiko, mer eller mindre i linje med vad som kan förväntas, medan effekterna på de regnbevattnade producenterna företrädesvis i södra Mexiko ej följer det förväntade mönstret. I en fortsatt analys av NAFTA-avtalets konsekvenser, framstår behovet av statliga interventioner mycket tydligt.

The aim of this paper is to examine how the Swedish implementation of the new trafficking laws may differ from the original intention from the UN and EU and if they are substandard due to poorly conducted law implementation. Or if it might be a victim of political symbolism, to win support and votes for the politicians in power from the people, a ?hollow showpiece? only meant to be shown off. Trafficking is a relatively new phenomena and problem to be researched and discussed. This paper investigates the impact of the Palermo protocols international definition of the problem, the convention against organized crime presented by the European Union on the Swedish legal system and its action plan. A qualitative text analysis focusing on the discourse of the intentions behind the internationally presented legal documents and compared against the carrying out of said national objectives.

The three post-communist states - Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine ? have gone different ways in terms of freedom and democracy since the breakdown of the Soviet Union 1991. During these years, the state and the civil society have been fundamental actors in the struggle against, and even for, authoritarianism.A strong state with great capacity in Belarus has undermined the chances for the civil society to fulfil its task as a watchdog of the state and link between the citizens and the government.Failed authoritarianism in Moldova has led to a situation where both the state and the civil society are weak. The major problem is lack of organization and cohesion; both the state and the civil society have often been divided by ethnical differences and are therefore not strong enough to promote democracy.In Ukraine, the dominance of a strong state ended in 2004 when the Orange Revolution took place, sometimes called a ?peak of democracy? where popular mobilization and protests succeeded in it's opposition against the state.

By the same time as the recent enlargement of the European Union, where Poland became a member, it was officially stated that the gender mainstreaming-policy was to be integrated into every area of EU. NGO:s working as entrepreneurs for the gender mainstreaming norm in Poland supported the accession largely because they believed it would help spreading the norm also on a national level. Qualitatively analyzing the Polish case and the difficulties gender mainstreaming as a norm candidate meets with I contrast expectations with what could actually be EU:s role in this matter.Arguing that EU is a context with room for spreading norms by both bargaining and socialization, this paper takes a social constructivist approach. Gender mainstreaming as a norm is difficult for EU to apply on their members, and thus was not widely discussed during accession negotiations. In the same time.

Dagligvaruhandeln har under de senaste åren utsatts för hårdare konkurrens. För att kunna möta denna konkurrens har företag som ICA och Coop effektiviserat sin verksamhet med hjälp av teknikbaserad självservice. Tekniken leder till att kunden utför de arbetsmoment som kassörskan tidigare gjorde. Detta fick oss att undra över personalens syn på den nya tekniken. Syftet med arbetet är att kartlägga hur personalen på en stormarknad reagerar på införandet av ny teknologi.

This paper aims to analyze the legal functions and characteristics of bills of lading in their basic form to examine the legal framework for the adoption of electronic bills of lading under Swedish law. With a comparative analysis against English law, particular attention is given to the 'document of title' function. This has been claimed to pose challenges in the transition to electronic bills of lading. While Swedish law presents potential parallels, critical aspects like negotiability and indirect possession require resolution. It analyzes international regulations such as the Rotterdam Rules and Model Law, addressing challenges and potential solutions for digitalization.

Since January 1st 2005 all companies listed on a regulated stock exchange within the European Union are required to present their financial reports in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). The intention of the introduction of IFRS is to achieve international harmonization of accounting rules in order to make financial reports more comparable between companies from different countries. The purpose of financial reports presented in accordance with IFRS is to provide information that is useful to the users of the information. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the information regarding goodwill and the goodwill impairment test, presented in accordance with IFRS, in fact is useful to a specific group of accounting information users, namely equity analysts. An empirical study is conducted, based on interviews with seven Swedish equity analysts.

This thesis investigates how lobbying influences the European Union Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (2020-2025). It asks which actors dominate, what strategies they use, and how these patterns can be explained by pluralism, corporatism, new institutionalism, and Kl?ver?s exchange logic. Using a qualitative case study with process tracing and text analysis, the study examines consultation data, official EU documents, and transparency reports. Findings show that commercial actors dominate consultations and expert groups, prioritising product-focused measures over systemic change, while transparency gaps enable informal influence.

This thesis analyses the 2005 UK presidency of the Council, and more particularly the negotiations on the future financing of the European Union. The purpose of the study is to discuss whether the holding of the presidency implies political influence for the member state. To analyse the power of the country holding the chair the thesis focuses on the presidency functions of brokering and leadership. The theory suggests that the influence of the presidency is derived from informational and procedural power resources, as well as some leadership resources, such as coercion and reward. A case study was used to analyse whether these power resources were used by the British presidency.