Since 1996 the Swedish households have ten folded their volume of loans for own homes that is attached to a floating interest rate. Also in 1996 the Swedish electric market was deregulated. These two facts have increased the volatility in the household expenses for these two commodities. This thesis studies the risk for homeowners attached to the exposure against the electric and the credit market. The risk model used is Cost-at-Risk which is usually used by public authorities for analysing the risk involved with national debt.

The relationship between free trade and the environment is often considered conflicting and the debates surrounding it are infected. My thesis deal with this conflict and how environmental concerns are integrated in three regional free trade agreements, North American Free Trade Agreement, The common market of the southern cone (MERCOSUR) and Southern African Development Community (SADC). I point out how the organizations differ from each other in this respect and I present a possible explanation to why they differ. The explanation is founded on the theory of the environmental Kuznets curve and that environmental concerns will depend on which level of development the member states in the organizations have. To judge and rank the organizations I have composed a model based on a pre-existing description of the trade and environment conflict.

AbstractThe purpose of this research is to examine which methods the municipality of Örebro recommends its schools to use in their work against mobbing and bad treatment, and to see if the school investigated follows these guidelines. By means of interviews I will examine which methods the Group for Equal Treatment at the school has found effective when dealing with these issues. My conclusions are that the municipality of Örebro clearly states what is important for the schools to work with, and a lot of effort has been put into creating a common model for all schools to use, in order to fulfill the goals of the law (2006:67) which forbids discrimination and any other kind of bad treatment of children and students. The school investigated follows the municipality guidelines to great extent. Early on the Group for Equal Treatment, including both principals, teachers and students, worked out a detailed plan for equal treatment. The Group for Equal Treatment mentioned some successful methods to use against mobbing and other forms of bad treatment. One of these methods is the annual theme week where the students get to participate in outlining the contents. Another success factor is to establish a good atmosphere between teachers and students, which is possible only if the teachers have time and opportunity to get to know their students. My examination shows that it is important to have a well thought-out plan to follow, but it must be adjusted to the needs and preconditions of the school in question..

Swedish migration law states that a person who wants to seek a residence permit based on family ties has to apply from the home country. This essay applies to cases when families that live in Sweden have to come apart when one parent has to return to the home country to seek a permit to which he or she is entitled.The rule causes families unnecessary suffering. This essay analyzes the reasons behind the rule and argues that it is compatible neither with Swedish policy of children's rights and gender equality nor with the international conventions that have been ratified.Furthermore, it is investigated whether the migration authorities act in compli-ance with the intentions behind the law. It is concluded that the Migration Board, despite their own critique of the rule, makes an unnecessarily restrictive interpre-tation. This results in a situation where no one takes responsibility for the conse-quences for the affected families.

The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria.

Pregnant workers are considered at risk in the labor market and therefore need extra protection from employment discrimination . The purpose of this essay is to investigate what protection of pregnant workers against discrimination in employment situations and  if  there  is  no  corresponding  protection  for  female  workers  claim  the  right  to parental leave.The essay describes the national and EU rules on applications and practice, showing how pregnant women and workers on parental leave are treated in the labor market. Through Sweden's accession to the EU , we must apply the requirements nationally EU imposes on its member countries.The essay shows that pregnant employees have a strong legal protection from discrimination in employment , from both DL and by EU directives . Employers who deny workers employment because of pregnancy is guilty of direct discrimination on grounds of sex, because it is only women who may become pregnant. It is not important whether it is a temporary or permanent position .

Regionalisation has become an increasingly important phenomenon in a globalized world. As models of regional integration, the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are two prominent examples. This thesis seeks to explore through a comparative analysis, the different mechanisms and institutions for handling breaches against fundamental values within the two regional organizations. Inter-linked with the issue of the legal-institutional framework is that of what values the mechanisms are designed to protect. The method used for the analysis is first and foremost that of public international and European law, but the thesis also attempts to give a broader picture of the issues presented.

Around the world governments reach out to their emigrant population, embracingthem as part of the nation, expecting their economic contribution. The aim of thisthesis is to examine the political strategy and governmental activities of ElSalvador with the purpose to include emigrants in the nation building project. Themain question is what consequences this has for the significance of citizenship.This case study is based on the theoretical framework of external citizenshipwhich is a new fenomena emanating from states growing interest of theirexpanding diaspora. It divides external citizenship in two parts; a legal dimensionand a practiced identity.I find that as the economic potential of salvadoreans abroad increase, theSalvadorean government makes institutional changes to tie emigrants to thenationstate. This results in the possibility for salvadoreans to remain citizens intheir country of origin, practicing their salvadorean identity at the same time asthey naturalize abroad.

Since criminality started to rise steeply in most western welfare states following the second world war the relationship between welfare support and criminality has been debated. For a period of time thought to be an effective preventive measure against crime welfare support has since from time to time come to be seen by some as ineffective and in some cases even as a contributing factor to the rise in crime. It remains a contested issue as new theories, such as social support theory, which is employed here, attempt to contribute to the understanding of what effects general welfare has on overall crime levels. As a connection which is relatively well-researched in the USA, altough still not yet fully understood, this study strives toward a better understanding by testing the relationship in a swedish context. The relationship might not function in the same way considering that the US is a fundamentally different welfare-regime than Sweden, liberal and social-democratic respectively.Untangling the relationship is attempted by employing a multivariate regressionanalysis on a crosssectional dataset consisting of data from 2012 covering 247 of Swedens total of 290 municipalities.

Lack of political interest and will to deal with human rights violations carried out under the civil- military dictatorship, has characterized the transition and post-transition in Uruguay. The systematic use of torture, arbitrary imprisonments and forced disappearances in the relatively small country created a culture of fear that has been present through out the post-transition phase. Human rights groups have been central actors in the fight for truth and justice and against impunity. This study analyzes how these groups multiple democracy-building functions have contributed to democratic development. It also analyses how the democracy-building functions have been constrained by the political context.

This paper examines if European integration has had an impact on national political parties by looking at the stances of the Swedish Green Party and the Left Party on the issue of the European Community and the European Union over time. With the development of the European Community and the European Union, national political parties face the challenge of an emerging political arena. European integration research has recently become more involved with what is called europeanization and political integration within the member states them self, this paper aims to provide further leverage to the thesis that national political actors undergo some degree of europeanization and are politically integrated in the EU, by examining manifestos of two historically eurosceptic Swedish political parties. The theoretical framework provided by neo-functional integration theory as well as europeanization is used to examine the empirical material in order to see if the political parties at the focal point of this study can be said to have undergone a change in political policy regarding the EC and EU, both in quantity and content. The analysis show that indeed both parties has undergone a change and what might be considered a europeanization, considering that the presence of the EU as a political issue seem to have risen in prominence and importance in the examined manifestos.

The aim of this study was to investigate how school counselors experienced collaboration with social services and whether they felt they have the ability to improve upon this collaboration. The empirical data consists of qualitative interviews with eight school counselors from public schools, ages 13 to 15, in eight separate municipalities in the Stockholm area. The main results showed that the school counselors recognized the positive benefits from collaboration, but that they in practice experienced difficulties turning this into a high-quality collaboration. The school counselors experienced that due to uncertain expectations in the collaboration it led to unclear distribution of areas of responsibilities. The school counselors expressed small or no possibilities for them to improve upon collaboration but pointed out that higher commitment and a positive attitude are valuable attributes to improving collaboration.

This literature study aims to examine the existence of cancer stem cells in breast cancer. The cancer stem cell theory states that there is a hierarchical organization within a tumour, in which a small subpopulation of the cells can initiate new tumours and maintain tumour growth whilst the bulk of the tumour cannot. These tumour initiating cells have shown to possess many characteristics similar to those of adult stem cells, which is why they are often referred to as cancer stem cells. Both cell types have the capacity of asymmetric division and have shown to possess mechanisms of resistance to both apoptosis and cancer drugs. The cancer stem cell theory elucidates many biological aspects such as the heterogeneity of tumours and the relapse of many cancers after what appeared to be successful treatments.

The increasing importance of human rights within the international community over the past fifteen years has raised the issue of humanitarian intervention. This concept is a complex one, and in the debate surrounding this issue can be heard arguments from and within legal, political and ethical standpoints. There is not yet a unified definition or agreement as to the nature of humanitarian intervention but it is clear that it is an important issue internationally and it is therefore interesting to see how this has affected the debate within individual countries. This study will thus examine the international development surrounding humanitarian intervention in relation to the official position taken by the Swedish government. The developments and discussion surrounding humanitarian intervention internationally and two central difficulties within this concept, legality vs.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what kind of idea a group of students in third grade, who attends a school in the Stockholm area, have on group work in school and how they think it affects their learning.The study is based on two questions:What opinion do the students have about group work?What opinion do the students have about how group work affects their learning?The method I have used to retrieve information has been to interview six different students, where the interviews were both individually and in groups. I started by interviewing students individually and then had a group interview. The idea with the group interview was to end it all with a brief discussion about the thoughts that came up during the individual interviews. I chose a selection of six students, four girls and two boys which they all were at the age of 9 and go to the same school.The socio-cultural and structural perspectives, is those theoretical perspectives that my study is based on.