This thesis, drawing from several empirical investigations, reaches the conclusion that there seems to be a positive correlation between the level of democracy and the level of state capacity in Latin American countries. This correlation is explained by a hypothesis derived from Rational Choice theory. With some important caveats, this conclusion is then applied to the discussion about democracy as a form of government. Within democracy, the thesis also offers an insight into different electoral systems and its possible implications, mostly on a theoretical level. The thesis only exists in swedish as of yet..

Två-statslösning för den Palestinska Myndigheten är en återkommande diskuterad väg bort ifrån konflikten i Mellanöstern. För Palestinas del har den mångåriga politiska och väpnade kampen för existensberättigande varit deras första argument i statsbyggnadsprocessen vilken har kantats av ?sexdagarskrig?, ?Yom-kippur-krig?, ?Al-Aqsa intifada? och stenkastning.Genom en fallstudie där jag har operationaliserat Barry Buzans teori om statsbildning så har jag under sökt dokumenten ?Oslo Agreement? och ?A Performanced-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?, om statsbildning baserat på dessa är möjlig. Resultatet av undersökningen är att teorin bakom de statsbildande komponenterna har kunnat operationaliseras och genom detta visat att territoriet, den nationella identiteten och palestinska strategiska områden är de mest förekommande statsbildande beståndsdelarna. Generellt citeras dokumenten fortfarande i statsbyggnadsprocessen men förtroendet att bygga staten Palestina på dessa, uppfattar jag vara urholkad.Sökord: ?Palestine State Building?, ?Statebuilding?, ?Statebuilding Buzan?, ?Statsbildning?..

The swedish rule concerning the treatment of employee stock-options have changed and the new wording of the rule will be applicable for the first time in 2010. The previous wording of the rule stated that the employee shall be taxed for the stock-option when moving abroad, even if the option is not exercised. The Swedish Skatteverket and Regeringsrätten have found that this rule is in conflict with the free movement of persons within the European Union. The new wording of the rule states that the employee shall be taxed when the option is excercised, no matter where the employee is situated. A state`s right of taxation of a stock-option determines wheter and to what extent the employee stock-otion derives from that state..

This thesis has the purpose of developing a normative theoretical framework based on different political philosophers and scientists view on deliberative democratic theory, discourse ethics and a modified norm of citizenship. This framework is supposed to contain the ideal communicative situation for people seeking asylum. Hence, the thesis argues that political influence is best practised through communicative rights, and that people seeking asylum are in title to such rights. We conclude that the standards needed to be met in order to reach the ideal are: translators, translated information, arenas for- or channels of communication, language education, and deliberative education. Once the framework is established we focus our interest on the Swedish state.

Aid effectiveness is a reoccuring theme in the social sciences. Maybe rightfully so, as development is slow in many parts of the developing world. Core literature on the matter seems to suggest that aid effectiveness is contingent on recipients? level of corruption. Assuming this to be true, I examine the EU?s disbursements of Official Development Assistance over the past decade by running regressions: is there a relationship between the level of aid received, and a country?s level of corruption? As the EU is one of the largest donors of foreign aid globally, and has the power to shape the global foreign aid agenda, this question puts to the test whether the EU is leading the way, or rather is an obstacle in front.

In this essay I will look at the independence of the Swedish municipalities. By looking at articles for the biggest journal in Sweden on this subject Kommun aktuellt I will look at the discussion for the years of 1978 and 1998 to see if one can draw some parallels in the debate and see if some subjects are always returning in the agenda for the independence. The autonomy of the Swedish municipalities is a very important part of the Swedish welfare model. The municipalities handles for example both the primary schools and the social welfare services. Both these institutions are money draining and the municipals right by law to claim local tax does far from all the time cover its expenses.

The subject for this paper is the Class Action against Skandia Association, a civil organization formed in 2003 with the aim of claiming compensation for some 1.2 million life insurance customers. The background to its formation was one of the largest financial scandals in Sweden in recent times, involving a number of questionable affairs within the insurance corporation Skandia and its subsidiaries, most notably the life insurance company Skandia Liv. The interests of both the stake- and stockholders of the company seem, in certain ways, to have been grossly misrepresented. The scandal, as well as the reaction it spawned, pose a number of questions. In this study, we focus on two: a possible, and in many ways apparent crisis in the representation of interests in Swedish society, and the role of civil society in upholding the balance between these interests.We argue that what is often held to be the ?greed? or ?immorality? of individuals in scandals such as Skandia is, to a great extent, a mere reflection of the ?rational? underpinnings of modern-day capitalism.We find that trust has been a key mechanism of control in the relationships between consumers and agents in pension and life insurance markets, and that ?the Swedish model? that distinguished post-WWII Swedish society was a model heavily based on trust towards existing models of bureaucratic governance.

In today?s Europe nationalist movements grow stronger. The Scottish referendum is a result of the nationalistic party Scottish National Party?s aim of an independent Scotland. Using a descriptive idea analysis the essay aim to answer how the referendum arose, its main arguments and how national and state identity is affected in the arguments.

This paper develops a theory for understanding negotiation situations involving states and indigenous peoples. Using relevant constructivist theory as a starting point, the paper develops a theory about understanding the relationship between power and culture implicit in the concept of the state. This relationship is examined in negotiations situations involving states and indigenous peoples. States are constituted by social structure and are representatives of the national culture. At the same time states are actors within the international system and a part of the culture of Westphalia.

In this thesis the aim is to explore the connection between International presence and Reconstruction of Postconflict states. The focus in this Analyse is the concept of CIMIC which is the institutional concept of Civil-Military Co-operation in International relations and a concept in Peacebuilding Theory. The cases, which are the empirical Material, is Afghanistan and Kosovo, two most-different cases.The theoretical framework is primarily consider the mechanisms successful for the Reconstruction process in general and within CIMIC in particular. This framework including both theories of State failure and International administered Territories as well as Models for Civil- Military Co-operation.The International presence in Postconflict Societies plays a big role, even thou it is very important that initiatives for rebuilding comes from the state within. The essence of CIMIC is the civil component and the military, operating in Peacebuilding and Reconstruction missions.

Castration of dogs holds many reasons and opinions, therefore methods, traditions and rea-sons vary. The approaches have during time changed from mostly surgical castrations to also including hormonal treatments. Castration is used to control the dog's reproductive abilities, for medical reasons and to possibly rectify problems of behavioral nature. How common a particular method of castration is in a country is highly dependent on the country's traditions. In Sweden it is most common with castration for medical reasons, such as possible elimina-tion of diseases, for example, benign colorectal tumors.

Most descriptions of stereotypic behaviours have in common that these repetitive behaviours only has been observed in captive animals and therefore it has been proposed that stereotypies exist because we house animals in environments that are sub-optimal to them. Some scientists claim that performance of stereotypies in itself decreases the animal's welfare due to costs in time, energy and health and a poorer quality of life. Other scientists assert that individuals performing stereotypies may have a better welfare compared to the rest of the animals in the same environment, since these individuals have developed strategies to cope with stress. Studies have estimated the prevalence of abnormal behaviours in horses to 18-30 % of the population. Several studies on cribbing have revealed a prevalence of 4-5 %, although some results indicate that more than 10 % of the horse population performs this stereotypy.

There have been several projects with solar installations in Sweden, and Sala-Heby Energi (SHE) wanted to create a solar plant. The question answered in this thesis is whether it is economically viable to create such a source of sustainable, renewable energy. The plant would be built with the help of the financial effort from 120 customers. This economic union would sell the electricity to the SHE, for SEK 4.50 per kWh up to a certain level over a period of 10 years. It would be a long term commitment to environmentally friendly electricity, using solar cells which convert sunlight directly into electricity.In year 2009 there was introduced a new state aid for photovoltaic systems, to create an increased and continuing interest in solar cells.

This essay discusses the Nordic region Bohuslän the decade after it became "Swedish" in 1658, during what I call the region's "transition period". The wide cause of the study is to show how the traditional understanding of this state shift (and of state shifts in general) need to be problemized and understood in the light of the state conditions of Early Modern Europe. By examine court protocols from the local-court of Orust and Tjörn (one of five local courts in contemporary Bohuslän) and the local noble's writings to the Swedish parliament, a tricky mixture of references to different territories gets observed and analyzed.To approach the difficult identity problems, I have assistance in Peter Sahlins' conclusions from his study of the French-Spanish borderland during the same period. Especially helpful are his identity schemes by which he (inspired by the Norwegian anthropologist Fredrik Barth) supposes that each identity originates from a counter-identity. This study ends up in an attempt to reconstruct the landscape of identities and counter-identities found in the sources, according to professor Sahlins' schemes.

The Vaxholm conflict was initiated when the Swedish Trade Union for Construction Workers shut down a construction site in order to prevent a Latvian construction company to build a school after the two parties had failed to agree upon a collective agreement in compliance with Swedish regulations. An emotional public debate followed that resulted in a discussion of the proposal for the Services Directive of the EU, based upon the country-of-origin principle. In this thesis we will analyze whether the country-of-origin principle or the country-of-destination principle is best suited to capture the gains-of-trade that the common market hoards and improve welfare within the EU. We conclude that the country-of-origin principle is the more apt of the two, though it leads to some short-run costs such as structural unemployment. But these will be more than outweighed by the gains in aggregate welfare for the EU in the long run..