The combat mission is an extreme situation with high demands of the Soldier. Killing might very well be necessary. Before a mission a Soldier can experience stress due to these factors. The purpose of this paper is to find methods to handle stress due to an upcoming combat mission and to the prospect of having to kill. The main questions of this essay: -How can certain parts of the physiological psychology improve a Soldiers ability to perform a mission? ? Is the Swedish Soldier mentally prepared to kill? The theory for this essay has been described using litteratur by experts within the field, and the results thereafter discussed.

This paper examines how the ideal of manhood is portrayed and constructed and how the participation of Swedish Soldier volunteers are motivated and legitimatized. The purpose of this examination is to gain understanding and knowledge about the Swedish Soldiers in the Swedish brigade, how they legitimatize and motivate their participation and how the ideal of manhood is portrayed and constructed. The study is based on material from the war archive in Stockholm. The empirical material is composed by letters and propaganda material. In the analysis of the empirical study, there have been two theories used which are Eric Hobsbawms historical method and theory about invented traditions and Peter Aronssons historical method and theory about ?historiebruk? and legitimacy.

This essay deals with the political upheavals which occurred in Japan with the Meiji Restoration of 1868 and its impact on the Samurai Class. This transitional period in Japanese history is portrayed in the film The Last Samurai from 2003, and it's the comparison between this Hollywood production and the current research on the subject on which this essay focuses. Two key figures who are portrayed in the film are Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise), an American Soldier from the Indian Wars of the 1860/70s who travels to Japan to quell the Samurai rebellion but ends up in captivity; only to learn their codex of honor and way of life and eventually become a Samurai himself. The other character calls himself Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe) and becomes the representative of the Samurai's struggle for their existence. Their friendship and cultural exchanges will remain a cornerstone throughout the film.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish Soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish Soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough Soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish Soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish Soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough Soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

The purpose of this thesis is to study how swedishness is constructed and narrated in two Swedish documentary series that picture the Swedish participation in the international ISAF mission in Afghanistan. The main focus lies on how the Swedish Soldier as such is portrayed, on which values, characteristics and qualities that they are said to embody and how these are linked to notions of swedishness, particularly the strong historical narrative, formed during the second half of the twentieth century, that defines Sweden as a peaceful, neutral and humanitarian state, with peaceful, enlightened and democratically minded citizens. Theoretically it draws on the concept of metanarrative to explain how ideas of shared national origin translates in to a broad organizing discourse, that defines, interprets and communicates notions of what it means to be a Swede and what is needed to make claims on swedishness. Another concept, that of national bodyscape, is also used to further define and explain how ideas of nationality are embodied and take the form of specific characteristics and  personal qualities. The meaning-making in these two series makes use of the above mentioned definition of swedishness as defined by humanitarian concerns, democratic ideals and moral superiority to construct an image of the Swedish Soldiers as on the one hand soft, humanitarians, who are needed in Afghanistan because of their especially strong sense of justice and moral, and, on the other, as tough Soldiers, who are able to participate in every aspect of the war as fighters.

The main purpose of this study is to show how narrative can be understood as cultural practice, how it can be said to function both internally and externally, and to ask questions about how the narrating subject, through the organizing of narrative, positions it self and mediates between the different discoursive contexts of which it is a part. This is done by an analisys of how six swedish Soldiers tells the tale of how they came to choose a military carrer and why they have served or want to serve in peace-keeping missions abroad. The source material is primarily collected through unstructured interviews with theese Soldiers, but also through textual analysis of a Soldier blog. Theoretically the study draws on a combination of the discourse theory of Michel Foucault, narrative theory, Richard Jenkins theory of the internal-external dialectic of identifikation and intersectionality to construct a framework that allows the narratives to be deconstructed and understood as discoursive products of both the military contexts as such and the larger cultrual context that surrounds it. The conclusions of this study suggests that the organizing of Soldier narratives are a complex and multifaceted process, in which the soliders must balance between the ideals, values and norms of the military context while also taking into account how society at large views and interprets the practices and forms of military life.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the 9/11 attacks, the landscape of the freedom of religion has changed. The issues now facing freedom of religion varies greatly from the issues that the drafters of the universal declaration of human rights faced after World War II.In the light of the new issues that States face in the intersection of religion and societal interest, scholars have criticized the European Court of Human Rights to give too much leeway to the States in determining how the human rights should be implemented, by using the doctrine of margin of appreciation. Critics of the margin of appreciation claim that it is based on culture relativism and that the doctrine undermines the universality of the human rights. In order to decide if the margin of appreciation has indeed led to a relativization of the human rights I compared it to the jurisprudence of the UN Human Rights Committee and its use of the Syracusa principles. My conclusion is that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights cannot be considered to be based on culture relativism.

The Swedish Armed Forces have undergone a significant change where we have gone from recruitment through duty and replaced it with a voluntary based defence. Across Europe, countries that have undergone the same type of change demonstrate change in the quality of those recruited. The focus in this paper is how recruitment quality looks in Sweden after three years of volunteer based defence and if officers at P7 can see a change in quality on those recruited. This work aims to investigate whether Soldier quality has changed from conscription recruited to voluntary recruited Soldiers. The question that the work tries to answer is whether one can see a change in quality in Soldiers and in that case how.The result can be summarized as one begins to see a change in recruiting quality but it is not something that is visible at the regiments.

Due to the increasing international operations for the Swedish Armed Forces these new types of opponents needs new tools to cope with these commitments. A couple of years ago the Swedish Armed Forces had no non-lethal weapons, but today the Swedish Soldier has a number of tools to choose from.The purpose of this paper is for the reader to get a presentation of which non-lethal weapons are used today by the Swedish Armed Forces and a sample of what non-lethal weapons are out on the market today. My main question is which non-lethal weapons do the Swedish Armed Forces? miss in their non-lethal capabilities set.I have collected information from a wide selections of sources like reports from the Swedish Defence Research Agency, the Swedish Armed Forces? own regulations and the Internet. The information is then processed and divided into five chapters: The development of non-lethal weapons, description of technologies, non-lethal weapons in the Swedish Armed Forces, Non-lethal weapons on the market and Results.This paper is limited to handheld, portable and man to man non-lethal weapons, all non-lethal weapons in the Swedish Armed Forces or on the international market are not covered.My conclusion is that the Swedish Armed Forces should acquire three 40 mm projectiles, one 12-gauge projectile and one TASER®..

The major part of the existing research on psychological effects on participating in war or residing in a war zone shows negative effects on the person?s mental health. However not all research, from an international perspective, shows the same results. Since we haven?t found any research regarding Swedish conditions and there has been a recent implementation of a decision from the Supreme Commander regarding commanded international service for all staff within the Swedish armed forces, the question has now become more relevant.

The Swedish military is trough the rescindment of military conscription on the 1 July 2010 taking a defining step towards a professional army. They stand before big recruitment challenges, not least to its foreign missions. This thesis aims to examine the motivations of individuals for going on missions abroad with the military. The thesis is built on seven qualitative interviews with individuals who have done foreign missions and is planning further rotations. The theory used is Fabrizio Battistellis motivation theory and a form of discourse analysis.

My study was conducted to provide a deeper understanding of the identity of employee Soldiers in the armed forces and their experience of their role in the military context. To describe and identify the Soldier's identity formation, values and norms working in group processes are taken into account. As the individual identifies her or himself whit the group, the various phenomena as hostility to other military groups arise. The individuals weld together with other group members to form strong normative relationships within the group. Through a qualitative research approach eight Soldiers in a regiment in western Sweden were interviewed, four of them were group executives or deputy group leaders and others were ordinary Soldiers.

Inom kort stundar en av Försvarsmaktens kanske största processer sedan förändringen mot ett insatsförsvar påbörjades under 90-talet. Soldatförsörjningen övergår från värnplikt till en professionalisering av hela personalstyrkan och soldater skall på frivillig bas rekryteras och anställas för att fylla upp Försvarsmaktens insatsförband. Med grund i Bernt Öströms rapport från 2008: Soldatförsörjning ? Redogörelse för modellerna i Danmark, Nederländerna och Spanien studeras de två nationerna Danmark och Nederländerna för att identifiera påverkande faktorer inom de bådas soldatförsörjningssystem. De två nationernas försvarsmakter, samt Sveriges, beskrivs övergripande med historisk bakgrund och nuläge angående soldatförsörjning.

Demenssjukdom är en sjukdom som drabbar flera funktioner i hjärnan. Den medför också betydande påfrestningar hos anhöriga. Varje år insjuknar 25 000 personer i Sverige och antalet dementa kommer att öka efter hand som befolkningen blir allt äldre. Sjukdomen tar stor plats i de anhörigas liv och oftast är det en make eller maka som blir vårdare. Syftet var att beskriva anhörigas upplevelser av att vårda och leva med en demenssjuk make eller maka i hemmet.