Over the last years there has been a considerable change in Swedish municipals. The number of municipals run by a rainbow Coalition, a Coalition made up of parties from different political blocks, has increased dramatically. Despite this clear pattern little research has tried to explain this increase. My thesis? aim is to try and clear the water around this subject by answering three questions about this type of Coalitions.

During the last decades the Swedish local party systems have gone through some considerable changes. The number of parties present in local party systems have increased and in some cases even doubled. This makes Coalition building between parties complex and parties will be forced to rethink their Coalition strategies and adjust to the new circumstances. Theoretically, Coalition building has often been considered and applied to national data and there have been just a few attempts to develop and theoretically explain Coalitions on a local level. Thus the aim of this paper is to use different theoretical approaches to local data to test the significance of traditional Coalition theories.

In Political Science a main theory is that a minimal winning Coalition (MWC) will participate in the government. The parties included have to share the power of government. Therefore the winning Coalition to be expected is the one including the fewest parties possible.My paper will atempt to examine if this is the main pattern in Swedish municipalities. My experience indicates that the ?Alliance for Sweden? including the four right-wing parties, that for the first time were connected through formal agreements in the elections 2006, formed a partly new and more obvious Coalition pattern.

AbstractSince the 2006 election the country of Sweden is governed by four Liberal and Conservative parties. Parties that by cooperating maintain power in office and forms a so called Coalition. A Coalition that not only can be seen at the national but also at the local level. According to pervious research Coalitions that holds control of the seats in the government at the national level tends to increase the total expenditures compared to other types of government formations. Can a similar connection be seen at the local level? This the fundamental issue of this essay.

AbstractIn this essay, policy change and learning is studied in the case of the Social Democratic Party and their policy concerning independent schools. Their policy differs clearly from the right-wing parties. Between 1991 and 1994, the right-wing government made substantial reforms concerning independent schools. The question posed in this essay is whether the policy of the Social Democratic Party has changed as a result of these actions, and if they have approached their right-wing counterparts.Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework, defining a policy as a result of the values the actor holds, the question is studied by applying the theory's assumptions of policy-learning across Coalitions. The argumentation of the Social Democratic Party, as it is expressed in official text documents before and after the right-wing government, is analysed.

This is a case study on the functioning of political parties and the aim was to explain ?how? and ?why? the Swedish social democratic party changed their policies in the Middle East politics. I wanted to explain this process of change by using Angelo Panebianco?s framework for the analysis of political parties. Angelo Panebianco´s hypothesis is that all parties must be viewed as organizations to understand their functions.

The main purpose of this essay was to study whether niche parties that were represented in municipal councils in Sweden during the 2007-2010 term of office were politically relevant. Furthermore, factors that might facilitate political relevance for niche parties were studied. Political relevance was studied using two theoretical perspectives. The objective model of political relevance presents four categories of relevance based on the relations between political parties in a political assembly; governing parties, Coalition parties, blackmail parties and isolated parties. The subjective model of political relevance relies on the party representatives? own judgments of the relevance of their parties.

In 2022 Sweden held a national election where the results forced a Coalitionconsisting of four parties to be created. The parties included were reachingfrom center-liberal to the party furthest to the right in the parliament. Withpolitical differences in between each other the parties made an agreementcalled ?Tid?avtalet? to create a collective policy platform that should be livedup to in the following election term. The purpose of this paper is to observe,analyze and discover if any ideological changes occurred with theimplementation of the Coalition.

Abstract This thesis is based on a case study of the drawn out legal process on the question of establish a limestone quarry in Bunge Ducker in north Gotland (Sweden). The current fields are located next to areas that are protected by virtue of being EU-certified Natura 2000-areas. Despite this, the Swedish governments and courts have not agreed in witch national interest that should be prevail when decisions are made on this issue. This phenomenon are reflected in the judicial process and different court have evaluate information differently in the case. A change among governmental actors where priority is given to the importance of national interest have occur in the later part in the process.

After World War II a rapid expansion of the Swedish health care took place. Theexpansion was realised chiefly as a development of the hospitals and was bothproduced and financed mainly within the public sector. The financing consisted to ahigh degree of government grants from the state to the county councils.During the period for this examination (1945-1955) the public responsibility for thehealth care was expanded. This was expressed in the publicly financed system forhealth insurance and the cut down in the charges that the patients had to pay for thehospital care. These changes led to some discussions on the national level but reformscould on the whole, with exception for the suggested reform of the open health care,be implemented.This case-study performed on the county council in Värmland shows that the degreeof consensus was enhanced on the regional level.

This thesis examines the power of developing countries within the World Trade Organization (WTO). The research question is if there is a change in the power relations between developing countries and developed countries from the establishment of the WTO in 1995 and until mid 2006, and if so, why this change is taking place? The thesis has its theoretical starting-point within regime theory and views it from a critical theoretical perspective. A multidimensional why of dealing with the concept of power is being used to answer if there is a change in the power relations? The conclusion is that there is a small change in the power relations and that the developing countries are gaining more, but limited power.

The Swedish alcohol policy has by tradition a restrictive composition, with high taxes and the Swedish Alcohol Retailing Monopoly as important elements. The Moderate Party has been powerful critics of the alcohol policy and has advocated a reformation. However, today the Moderate Party seems to have changed the attitude towards the alcohol policy and it even supports the Swedish initiative to create cooperation about alcohol matters at the EU level.This thesis examines why the Moderate Party has changed its attitude towards the restrictive alcohol policy. Three aspects have been considered: the rise of a European public policy, strategic choice, and the influence of the political environment. The paper discusses the problem from a strategic perspective, which means that the political change is viewed as a result of strategic considerations.The party has indeed been affected by all of the three aspects, although to different extent.

The overall purpose with this thesis has been to study the strategic development of the Swedish Green Party, Miljöpartiet de Gröna. From its first appearance in the Swedish parliament 1988 to its decision to cooperate with the Social Democrats and the Left Party in 1998, the Greens has gone from a radical antiparty to a pragmatic support party. The analysis has concentrated towards identifying the causal factors behind this strategic move made by the Greens, and to determine how this party change has affected the party's strategic goals. In order to do so, a qualitative case study has been conducted where an integrated theoretical approach has been used. By studying official statements and internal debates the thesis concludes that the strategic change made by the Greens was due to the evolvement of a new dominant Coalition of within the party.

AbstractThis study examines the conclusions made by Roland Paris in his case study of fourteen major post-war reconstruction efforts following the end of the Cold War, and applies them to the current reconstruction process in post-war Iraq. Paris found a common denominator of the fourteen cases ? a belief that a rapid liberalization process, turning war-torn states into liberal market democracies, would foster sustainable peace. Paris calls this belief ?Wilsonianism? after Woodrow Wilson, who was one of the first advocates of it.

The overall purpose with this thesis has been to study the strategic development of the Swedish Green Party, Miljöpartiet de Gröna. From its first appearance in the Swedish parliament 1988 to its decision to cooperate with the Social Democrats and the Left Party in 1998, the Greens has gone from a radical antiparty to a pragmatic support party. The analysis has concentrated towards identifying the causal factors behind this strategic move made by the Greens, and to determine how this party change has affected the party's strategic goals. In order to do so, a qualitative case study has been conducted where an integrated theoretical approach has been used. By studying official statements and internal debates the thesis concludes that the strategic change made by the Greens was due to the evolvement of a new dominant Coalition of within the party.