The purpose of this Masters-thesis is to examine the impact of identity politics on (a) Turkey's foreign policy towards Europe and the EU, and (b) Europe's/EU's political attitude towards Turkey, and what implications this may have on a possibly future Turkish membership in the EU. It is a more interpreting thesis than it is an explaining one. The examination shows that Turkey has considered Europe as a political model, while Europe has used the muslime Turkey as a threat to determine its own identity. The negotiations between EU and Turkey this autumn will have great impact on the identity of both sites. If the EU accepted Turkey as a member, the union could gain a chance to spread democracy to the islamic world and thereby earn global respect.

Title: Talent Management: Retention and development of employeesLevel: Bachelor?s Degree in Business and AdministrationAuthors: Amra Abdulic Dzankovic and Anna JaurénSupervisor: Per-Arne WikströmDate: June 2013Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine how an organization can implement talent management strategies to retain and develop their employees. We intend to increase the understanding of talent management by highlighting various strategies to retain and develop employees.Methodology: The study has been carried out with a qualitative approach through a case study in cooperation with a large organization within the public sector in Sweden. Empirical material has been collected through semi-structured interviews with all the divisional managers. An extensive analysis of literature and research connected to Talent Management and tools for retention and development has formed the basis of the theoretical framework.Result and Conclusion: The conclusions we have drawn from this study is that to succeed with Talent Management, and the strategies that are in place to retain and develop employees, there must be an integral and comprehensive approach where business strategy and vision also permeates personnel strategy.

The following essay is named The canonization of Joan of Arc, a Church political strategy or the creation of a national symbol? Joan of Arc, the French heroine of the Hundred Years War, was canonized as late as 1920, in a process that began already in 1869. In the following essay I am trying to work out if this canonization is a work of the Vatican in order to gain popularity in France after the breakup with the state in 1905. The Catholic Church had, since the French Revolution, faced difficulties withstanding its position of power in the presence of the upcoming Secularism and Liberalism and their growing public support. The Catholic Church had been fighting for its members and at the same time fighting the new ideas of Socialism, Communism and Liberalism.

The aim of this study is to examine which communication channels and communication strategies Umea? municipality could use for information concerning outdoor recreation. To achieve this aim the following theories and views have been applied: social communication, communication strategies, two-way symmetrical communication, social media and uses and gratifications. The study was conducted through four focus group interviews and one informant interview. The focus groups consisted of four groups of outdoor enthusiasts in Umea? municipality: outdoor interested students, organized outdoor enthusiasts, active families and active seniors.

This paper analyzes the Swedish labor market during the interwar and early postwar period within the framework of modern labor market theory. The development of unemployment during this period - according to the commonly cited source of labor union reports - represents a conundrum for research. The unemployment rate rose after the initial diverse shock of 1921 and stayed at a permanently higher level for the rest of the interwar period. This development was reversed after World War Two when the unemployment rate decreased and stayed permanently low for the rest of the postwar period until the oil price chock of the 1970s.In a first step the available sources of unemployment statistics is investigated and compared. The general conclusion is that the labor union reports overestimate the level of economy wide unemployment while being a reasonably good indicator of movements in the rate.

In the future the Swedish pension system will face major problems. With an increasing aging population combined with a decreasing share of working population the financing of the pension system is becoming a bigger problem than previously predicted. This means the individual himself will have a bigger responsibility to invest money for their future retirement. It has been shown that a large proportion of the people who invests for their future pension have neither the interest nor the time to actively invest their pension capital. To make it easier for those who invest for their retirement, some Swedish banks have created so-called generation funds.

SummaryEurope?s public authorities are influential consumers. If they spend their money on greener products and services they can make an important contribution to the work towards a sustainable development. Green public procurement can thereby significantly improve the take-up of new environmental technologies. Through the effects of economies of scale, production costs be lowered and better equip us to fight environmental problems.

Problem: Small companies dominate the skin care industry, and they also face moredifficulties, constraints and resistance in strategy implementation and sustainabilitywork than other operators. Still, the trend of sustainability strategies increasesignificantly precisely in this industry.Purpose: The purpose of the study is to contribute knowledge to the field ofsustainability strategies and motives for the implementation of them in smallercompanies who engage with skin care, in Sweden.Framing of a question: Why do some smaller Swedish companies in the skin careindustry choose to implement sustainability strategies in their business?Literature: The literature functions as a framework for the study and is considered toidentify the possible reasons why small companies choose to implement sustainabilitystrategies or not. The literature is collected before the empirical data.Method: This paper is constructed by a qualitative method approach. The empiricaldata were collected through interviews, by telephone, personal meetings and email,which were then transcribed and the interpreted by a model, which the authors havecreated.Conclusion: Smaller companies are often met by larger resistance and an until up tothe present slowly emerging industry with vague rules and controls as well as ancomparative knowledge of what is good and what is not.

The study addresses the field of design as a profession and examines the views on strategic management in a design project among nine selected graphic designers. The graphic designers who participate in the study are permanently employed at design companies in Stockholm. The study has a qualitative approach and the method is based on face-to-face interviews. We have chosen to examine this subject due to the opinion among professionals that strategic management in the design industry has increased during the last decades. There is a belief that strategic management in some cases are used too extensively as a way for design companies to make more money.

Declining union memberships are a fact in both Sweden and Finland. At the same time, the autonomous labour market parties and the high membership rates are the most significant factors for the two countries compared to Europe and the rest of the world. These two factors have in turn been developed and strengthened since the beginning of the twentieth century. By autonomous labour market parties I refer to the fact that the labour market parties themselves through collective bargaining are agreeing on the labour market conditions, without interference from the government.This paper is therefore taking it's stance in the question of what happens with the autonomous labour market parties when the membership rates are in decline. With this in mind, this paper describes the judicial development, the collective agreement and labour market structures, the legal consequences of collective agreements and the opportunities of industrial and sympathy action in both Sweden and Finland. The two countries' systems of labour law have caught some negative attention, hence two of the most discussed cases of recent years are given some attention as well. The collective judicial conditions are very similar in both Sweden and Finland regarding the labour market main actors' collaboration, the collective agreement structures and legal consequences and the opportunities of industrial and sympathy action.

The city?s public environments are meant to be perceived as safe and inviting areas to visit any time of the day. In recent decades the number of vandalism complaints has doubled and graffiti has become so common that it received a separate category in the crime statistics. With this type of impacts in the public environments the experience are precarious and a boring sight. It?s difficult to put a price tag on these types of crimes, the number of unreported cases suspected to be large.

This study focuses on nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Anchored in theories that this region historically has been characterized by a nationalism that is based on the ethnic group rather than on liberal or civic concepts, it is the purpose of this study to explore whether these theories still apply in recent times when the region has been liberalized, for example manifested in the entry to the European Union. The research question has been tested through analysis of the constitutions of a number of Central and Eastern European countries in order to investigate what type of nationalism that the states have codified in their basic political documents. The results show that some of the states give expression to the historical ethnic nationalism in their constitutions, which indicates that the theories still are relevant..

The purpose of this thesis is to study how today?s consumer society can be understood from ananalysis of the phenomenon Every Day Carry (EDC). The aim is thus to problematize the daily useof the artifacts that surrounds us and investigate how these can be understood as networks of humanand non-human actors, aswell as identity- and meaning-making practices in today?s consumersociety.The theoretical and methodical framework is built upon an eclectic variety of consumptiontheories,Michel Callon?s, John Law?s and Bruno Latour?s work on Actor-Network-Theory,Discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and anethnographic methodology specifically adapted for online research. The empirical material consistsof photographs and commentaries from two EDC blogs aswell as commentaries regarding EDCfrom a commentary field on Youtube.com.

The starting point of this thesis is the debate surrounding the two referenda?s in France and the Netherlands in May and June 2005, regarding the proposal of a European constitution. The aim of this study is to analyse how democratic legitimacy and the role of the citizens portrays within the democratic discourse of the European Union. The empirical material is based upon both speeches from the European Commission and news articles from the French newspaper Libération and the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Discourse analysis is used as a theoretical frame of reference combined with models of democracy.

High oil prices and bad harvests have led to dramatic increases in food prices and are nowthreatening millions of people in densely populated cities all over the world. To ensure thatthese people will have enough food without compromising the needs of future generationswill be a demanding task for politicians and decision makers. ?is paper has shown thatHavanas urban gardens have increased urban food security since the hunger crisis thatoccurred a?er the fall of the Sovjet Union in 1989, and that they support the thesis of Amartya Sen and the Ryerson University. Urban gardens can be a good example for cities how to avoid hunger and famine if they are properly managed.