This thesis compares political participation by the public through the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman (PO) and the German Petitions Committee of the Bundestag (PC). Through studies of literature and statistics I examine how citizens can participate through the institutions, how frequently they do and the likelihood of sparking a debate while participating.Using media theories as well as theories of participatory and representative democracy I study how citizens can use these institutions for purposes of control and proposition.Both institutions deal with complaints but the PC also deals with propositions for legislation, making the institution more versatile. The PO deals with more cases than the PC and has more far-reaching competences and areas of inspection, although neither institution has binding decisions. Thus the direct advantage for citizens using the institutions is the chance of reaching out to media and the public through freedom of information laws and the German online petition forum.The PC to a larger extent fits the representative model while the PO in some respects is more a legal than a political institution, being managed by lawyers instead of MPs. Neither institution meets the ideals of participatory politics although the German official petition is closer to it..

In order to be a good teacher according to preferences from outside the school area, there are many different voices to listen to. The different roles that are assigned for teachers are colliding with the latest research from the pedagogical institutions and therefore the role as a teacher of today is in a complex state of mind. Somewhere, between the traditional role of teaching and the moderating ideal image, reality is revealed in the ambivalent role of the teacher of today. In this pedagogical essay on advanced level we are focusing on obstacles that are hindering the moderating teacher?s role, to be fully developed in the classroom.

This study is about trust for public institutions and what the foundation is that builds this confidence. For this study I have used three dependent variables to define different aspects of public institutions. These are trust in the legal system, trust in political parties and state of health services nowadays.  The method that is used in the study is based on a comparative study between two countries, Sweden and Portugal.  The actual result is made up by comparing means and regressions by using 13 independent variables. Many of the independent variables that has been used is deriving from institutional theories of Putnam and Rothstein These theories points out the importance of strong traditions of civic engagement and that the success of the trust of the institutions depends in large part on the horizontal bonds that make up social capital.

A reform of higher education in Sweden in 1993 led to stiffer competitive climate among educational institutions. The reform meant that educational institutions now had the opportunity to plan their curriculum autonomously. Prior to the reform educational planning was restricted to the Swedish government. The new rules spelled a greater opportunity for educational institutions to profile themselves based on their educational offerings. The higher degree of competition means that marketing becomes increasingly important when recruiting new students.

This thesis analyzes and discusses the role of institutions concerning countries' abilities to create economic wealth. The countries that we are analyzing are the former members of the Warsaw pact and former Yugoslavia. These countries are referred to as transition countries. In order to analyze the transition countries institutional structure we are using Douglass C. North's theory regarding institutions and institutional building.

AbstractTitle: The signification of the traditional gender roles in misuse treatment ? the experiences of eight addictsAuthor: Andersson Malin, Gunnarsson AnnelieSupervisor: Lindberg OddThe purpose with this essay is to study if the staff in two LVM treatment facilities do strengthen the traditional gender roles in their daily work and interactions with the clients. The aim was also to study if the staff reconstruct traditional gender roles and if this can be seen as an advantage or disadvantage in the treatment. Finally the aim was to investigate if the staff encouraged the clients to break loose from the traditional gender roles. A qualitative approach using face to face interviews was used.

The purpose of this essay is on the one hand to study Sub-Saharan Africa from a comparative perspective to analyze different explanations to democratization and on the other hand to compare the democratization of the most interesting cases found. To fulfil the purpose, the essay is divided into a quantitative and a qualitative part. The quantitative part starts from four different theories of democratization and thus has a deductive theory testing approach. We intend to use four theories: the modernization theory, the theory of stable institutions as a prerequisite for democratization, political culture and ethnic diversity as an obstacle for democratization, to test how they correspond with the democratic situation in Africa, and at the same time find deviant cases. The second part of the study takes its start from an inductive perspective and examines institutions and citizens of the deviant cases.

This report is a study of Swedish traditional ships and their safety organization. The focus is on how the non-profit organizations that operate the traditional ships can adapt to current regulations in the best way. Initially a background on traditional ships, their organization and regulations that regulates them will be presented.The study is focused on which parts that can be more important in the safety organizations for traditional ships. The questions also includes if a non-profit organization might affect the safety and how the role as designated person should be handled in these organizations. Furthermore the study addresses how a non-profit organization that operates traditional ships might improve their safety organization.The information is gathered by interviews with persons that work with safety, controls safety organizations or is active in organizations that operate traditional ships.

AbstractIn this thesis we analyze how institutions describe the dichotomy between ?problem? and ?resource? when dealing with young adults. We also analyze the consequences of this dichotomy as it involves the younger generation's participation and group identity in today's society. Dichotomies and New Institutionalism Theory is the base for this case study completed in Malmö, Sweden. We have done eight qualitative interviews with politicians and employees in Malmö municipality and a quantitative content analysis of reference documents from both the Malmö and Swedish governments.

The purpose of the study is to see differences and development of two institutions for social care (work science) in two countries - the University of Lodz, Polen, and the University of Lund, Sweden.The central question is, if there is any convergence between these Institutions for Social care.The method has been to use both earlier research and to have two interviews. I did interviews with two professors working at two Universities, one with professor Ewa Marynowicz-Hetka at Lodz University and the other with professor Hans Swärd at the University of Lund. I started to study relevant literature and took part of secondary material in both countries.The main result of this study is that some convergence tendencies between those two trainings exist. All of them have connection with international cooperation. There are also same forces that stopped those tendencies; one of them is tradition on institutions..

The purpose of this essay has been to study if the social services adjust the choice of institution to every juvenile's need of care. If the choice of institution isn't adjusted to the juveniles the institutional placement can become a way to store them rather then treat them.To accomplish the purpose of the essay we have interviewed ten social workers with different worktitles and positions. We have delimited the study to three swedish communities with varying sizes. We have analyzed the material with Bourdieus theory of "field" and "doxa" and Antonovskys theory "a sense of coherence" (SOC).We came to the conclusion that the social service adjusted the choice of institution to the juveniles needs as much as possible. Although there are a couple of factors that some times makes the best choices impossible.

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to, through interviews, examine what opinions teachers connected to "Ung Företagsamhet" (Young Enterprise, UF) have on the work of UF compared to contractual and traditional learning. The reason for this is to find out if UF´s way of working is successful in a world, where the definition of knowledge constantly changes. Through qualitative interviews the views of four UF teachers are scrutinised. The results of the interviews indicate that UF works in a way, which contains both contractual and traditional learning, where both directions complement each other in different stages of the learning process.Key words: Contractual learning, pedagogical perspective, Young Enterprise, traditional learning.

Our purpose with this essay is to examine how staff that works with drugaddicts in compulsory-treatment institutions for women and men uses gender in their work. We are trying to get knowledge and understand how the staff is using their own and the client's gender in the work that they are doing. We have chosen to take focus within women's care in institutions and compare if the work is done in the same way with male clients.Our essay is based on interviews with treatment-staff. We have used a qualitative method. The interviews are made with both men and women.

My study focuses on how heterosexuality became, and still is, the norm for sexuality in Namibia. My aim is to through interviewing young academics from University of Namibia and by using discourse analysis, queer- and postcolonial theory, try to find out how these young academics perceive sexuality. My findings are that my respondents perceive heterosexuality to be natural, normal and given by god, and that they perceive homosexuality to be ?a big no-no?. There are certain institutions in the Namibian society that regulates how the Namibian people thinks about sexuality, and my findings are that these are Christianity, culture, family, government, and the traditional picture of a good man and a good woman.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate whether a combination of product placement and traditional advertising can enhance the company's marketing. We perform this study because we believe that the consumers consider traditional marketing in many cases obsolete.TheoryThe study?s theory consists of topics and terms of product placement, traditional marketing, branding and communications. Theories used in this study were the basis to answer the study's research question using empirical data gathered during the study.MethodThe study has a deductive approach with a qualitative focus, therefore, the study is based on existing research, which was later to use for the data extracted from the interviews. The approach is going to show differences and similarities between how it looks in reality versus theory.ConclusionThe results of this study show that product placement can increase the efficiency of traditional marketing.