This thesis title starting from zero alludes to storstadssatsningen's democratic work being accomplished among immigrants in Malmö. My thesis examines which types of political participation storstadssatsningen were trying to increase. The goal was to turn the immigrants into political participants, but in many of the projects the democratic work had to focus on building a ground for democratic participation by bringing isolation to an end and teaching the Swedish language. This may have been the reason that there were not extensive forms of resources to put into projects actually raising the political awareness. Some of the projects can however be said to increase a very large number of types of political participation, both temporary and every day participation.

Political realism is a general theory within political science focusing on the principle interest defined as power. The theory?s mutual standpoint is that states are inspired by Power politics meaning that military and economic power or security stands in the centre while moral and ethics are placed in the periphery. This essay?s purpose is to analyze realism which helps to understand the development and change of the perspective.

This study is about the perception of politics in social work. The aim of the study was to seehow people working with social work in municipalities describe their perception of how politicsaffect their work. The study was conducted in two municipalities in middle Sweden,which had a transfer of power in the 2006 election. Six people; two social workers, two executivedirectors and two politicians was interviewed about their perceptions about politics, ifthe ideological direction of the municipal matters, and how politics effect social work and theorganization. As analyze method organizational theory with focus on change and power wereused.

This essay is a discourse and a feminist theoretical analysis that focuses on the alternative discourse that we consider Feminist Initiative to be constitutive of. Our theoretical stance, with base in Laclau and Mouffes discourse theory, builds on the notion that reality is characterised by conflicts between different competing discursive formations and that the social is an endless struggle over the preferential right of interpretation of meaning. More specifically, the essay focuses on the discursive struggle over the meaning of the term politics. It is our understanding that the dominant perception of politics necessarily excludes other understandings, which can according to Eduards, be explained as a consequence of a patriarchal distribution of power that renders the subordination of certain understandings of politics accordingly. Feminist Initiative, as an alternative discourse, can therefore be perceived as a threat to the dominating discourse of politics, which in order to maintain its preferential right of interpretation seek to illegitimatise and depoliticise the politics that the alternative discourse represents.

AbstractTitle: PR and Politics- the role of the PR consults in Swedish politics (PR och Politik ?PR konsulternas roll i svensk politik)Number of pages: 34Author: Andia GhafouriTutor: Peder Hård af SegerstadCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: HT 2006University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science,Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: To study the PR functions role in Swedish politics and what role it plays for the democracy.Material/Method: Interviews with PR peopleMain results: That the PR people have the right kind of network and the knowledge about how to influence political decisions and the public opinion. Their methods could be criticized from a democratic point of view since they are professionals and their ability to bring up issues in to the public agenda is stronger than ordinary peoples? ability, which could be discussed if it is fair in a democratic society, that people who get paid have more power to change than those who don?t.Keywords: Public Relations, Communication, Politics, Democracy, Information, Networks.

According to many scholars America's soft power is in decline, a power resource whose importance has been increasing in world politics. This makes it interesting to examine if there is a difference between how Democratic and Republican administrations wield their soft power.This thesis is a hypothesis-testing study and the purpose is to test the hypothesis that Democratic administrations, to a greater extent than Republican, can create, utilize and defend soft power. My thesis is based on Joseph Nye's theory of soft power and the focus of this study is the aspects of the foreign policy resources. In order to measure this concept I have made my own operationalization where five different indicators serve as my guidance. I use the method of least likely-cases to select and motivate the administrations being tested, which gives me a comparative study of the Democratic administrations of Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton and the Republican administration of George H.

The UN has a goal to gender-mainstream all politics, but its politics in climate change is not gender-sensitive. The Swedish government has the same goal concerning gender mainstreaming, but does the Swedish politics of climate change reach this goal? The aim of this paper is to examine the relations between the Swedish politics of gender and climate change. In addition, the aim is also to investigate how gender is constructed in the climate politics. To reach these aims, an institutional, policy and gender analysis is used.

The following essay studies the change in the use of terminology pertaining to socioeconomic categorising in public political material, and how this relates to ideological changes in politics. The aim is to determine which expressions government commission reports have used after the Second World War to classify citizens in social and economic groups, and subsequently, to link the understanding of these terms to the development of Swedish welfare politics. Welfare politics in Sweden have experienced a transition in a liberal and economistic direction that is reflected in the commission reports? choices of words and phrases ? thus studying the altering terminology can increase understanding of the ideological change. My methodology is grounded in ideology critique where I examine how dominant ideology is reproduced in public political documents.

This essay revolves around two questions: what is the nature of politics, and what kind of political order ensures a high rate of citizen participation? By using Cantal Mouffes theory on the political this essay shows how different understandings of the nature of politics can lead to diverging views on what forms democracy should take. Two such understandings are identified; one that sees the nature of politics as characterized by conflict and power, one that sees it as a space for cooperation in search for the common good. I trace these different ideas about the political in the parliamentary debate concerning Swedish constitutional reform. I conclude that the left-of-centre parties hold a view of the political closer to the conflict-perspective, while the green party together with the liberals/conservatives lean closer to the opposite view..

I have studied how network in a broad sense can affect decision-making. The primary purpose is to see if the political initiative somewhere disappears when it comes to understand the relations between power, actors and politics. The study discuss in a theoretical area that concerns the reliability in neoinstitutionalism to use as an analytical instrument. Some criticism is given to the theoretical standpoint in the sense that there is no power perspective included in the theory. I include a discussion about a concept of power, which I include to the theory.

The aim of the study is to examine how religion legitimates outrages and it what ways we can regard religion as politics. The study uses the theory that Eickelman and Piscatori present in their book Muslim politics. They use the term ?Muslim politics? to describe the relation between Islam and politics. Eickelman and Piscatori divide Muslim politics in five elements that the essay uses to structure the analysis.

How effective is consumer power? Can consumers regulate corporate behavior?And if so is the case, could the mechanisms where consumers regulate corporatebehavior have any democratic value to contribute with? These are the questionsthat this master's thesis comprehends with. The purpose of this writing is toconstruct a theory of consumer power that is compatible with democratic theory,this in order to contribute to the ongoing discussion within the discipline ofpolitical science about the third democratic transformation. A discussion that hasbeen actualized due to the democratic deficit created by the growing corporatepower and the shift of power from state to private enterprises. Besides showingfor a parallel between the democratic mechanisms that exists in the relationbetween citizens and state on the one hand, and the consumers and corporationson the other hand, this paper argues that consumers do have a great potential inregulating corporate behavior towards a higher social responsibility andawareness.

AbstractC-essay in political science by Anna BryntessonSupervisor: Michele MichelettiSpring 2006?Young municipality politicians - Why some young people become municipality politicians, how they think it is andwhat they think should be done to engage more young people in politics??The Swedish municipalities have problem with that they doesen´t have many politicians under 30 years. Many of the young people who become politicians drop out after a short while. The conclusion of this is that the Swedish municipalities have problems to engage young people in politics.The purpose of this essay is to study and try to find out what young people think about politics? This is done with personally interviews with 7 young municipality politicians from the municipality of Eda.The specific research questions are:? Who are they which became young municipality politicians?? What was the reason that they became politicians?? How do they look at municipality politics?? Which roll and function does the young people have as a municipality politician?? What do they think should be done to get more young people to engaged in politics and become a municipality politician?The young Eda politician is a girl living in a house in the country and she has middle education.

Written declarations in the European Parliament have not been given muchattention in the field of political science. The scope of this Master's thesis is toexamine whether symbolic politics are present in written declarations and howthis may show. In this study, the aspects of symbolic politics of writtendeclarations of the sixth parliamentary term are examined using a taxonomy foridentifying symbolic politics developed by Peter Santesson-Wilson. Thetaxonomy is applied on 15 written declarations, all adopted by the EuropeanParliament, dealing with a variety of EU-related issues, ranging from July 2004 toJuly 2008.The main findings of the study show that symbolic politics is a presentphenomenon in nearly all written declarations (13 out of 15 cases) subject to thisstudy.In the final chapter of this study inter alia symbolic politics as a deliberateaction is discussed in the view of written declarations. Irrespective of this, onecould say that symbolic politics are institutionalised in the European Parliament,at least when it comes to written declarations..

ABSTRACT Essay in political science, C-level by Chris Baldebo spring semester 2010. Tutor: Arne Larsson. ?Women?s conditions in municipal politics in the municipality of Karlstad - Six politicians tell?.  The purpose of this paper is to explore women?s conditions in the municipal political work in the municipality of Karlstad.