The concept of security is a contested one. The United Nations definition in UNDPs Development report of 1994 is the most authoritive and commonly cited. The civil war in Sudan has led to 2 million deaths and over 5.5 million refugees. In a resolution from 2005, the UN decided that the war in Sudan was a threat to international security and peace. The 10th of January UN decided that a peace commission ought to be send with 10 000 military and civil men including 700 policemen.The main purpose of this thesis is to improve our knowledge of those factors which can cause an increased risk of conflict within a state, and how that can affect the social conditions for individuals.

The Security Council?s resolution 1325 addressed the major negative impact that armed conflict has on women and children. This in turn complicates the Council?s work on maintaining international peace and security. The resolution therefore highlights women?s rights as participants in peace- and conflict processes.

Art.39 är grindvakten som inleder kapitel VII i FN-stadgan och tröskeln vid vilken säkerhetsrådet går från att vara ett multilateralt organ till ett globalt verkställande organ. Konceptet ?threat to the peace? är det bredaste, otydligaste och viktigaste begreppet i art.39 FN-stadgan. Genom att framställa de centrala förutsättningarna för tillämpningen av art. 40-42, öppnar art.

The United Nations is an important organization when it comes to international peace and security. Recent events in international politics, however, have brought about a widespread concern about the abilities of the organization. Powerful states have shosen to act outside of the organization to achieve their goals. They have furthermore a disproportionate influence on the decision-making body, the Security Council.The aim of this essay is to examine wheather UN can function productively as keeper of the international peace and security in the political climate of today, and to find out to what extent the powerful states harm the organization. I use a theoretical article, concerning states relations to international organisations, to analyse the acts of powerful states in UN.

International organizations are important actors on the stage of world politics, and how these actors securitize the climate change issue is of importance for how it will be tackled by actors on global and national levels. The purpose of this study is to contribute to research on climate security discourses and how climate change is defined as a security concern amongst different actors. This study, in contrast to previous research, focuses on systematically mapping the definitions made by different international organizations by asking: whose security is at stake; who is responsible for responding to the threat; how is the nature of the threat defined; and what responses are suggested? By analyzing material consisting of a variety of documents and statements from five international organizations, I aim to identify differences between these actors ? in how the climate change issue is conceptualized from a security perspective. The result of the study shows that only one of the organizations shows clear elements of the national/geopolitical security discourse, while all of the other actors primarily use the human security discourse.

The purpose of this study is to analyze how the parties (USA, Great Britain, UN and the European Union) legitimize their intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina as seen from without the conceptions of sovereignty and intervention. USA and the UN have legitimized their intervention on security reasons. The American president, George W. Bush, claimed that democracies never engage in war with each other and that democracies were prosperous just because they were democracies. According to the president, that is why it is important to democratise the whole Balkan region to protect the international community from terrorism which grows in unstable and undemocratic states.

Participating in peace support operations has been and remains a significant part of the Swedish defense and security politics. Since the end of the Cold War, the Swedish national defence has been more and more dismantled, in favor of international peace support operations which have become an increasingly important task for the Swedish defence. Why then, is Sweden so engaged in conflicts so far from home? Using two classic theories of international politics, realism and liberalism, this study aims to shed light on arguments from the Swedish parliament on why it is important for Sweden to participate in international peace support operations. After analyzing arguments of the Social Democrat Party, the Moderate Party, the Green Party and the Liberal Party concerning three different peace support operations which Sweden has participated in, the result shows that although both realism and liberalism are influencing the parties? argumentation, liberalism is the theory which is used more often.

Big dangerous Russia, environmental thief or house warmer? The Nord Stream pipelines are a highly debated theme in Europe and the EU. A number of different countries will be subject to the pipelines direct or indirect. This paper aims to figure out what kind of threats and possibilities Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Germany consider to be the consequences with the pipelines.The study takes as a standpoint the area of security studies and the widened of the same. The three standpoints within the security study that will be used are military security, environmental security and energy security.

The United Nations has a responsibility to combat acts of international terrorism, as they constitute a Threat to international peace and security. In spite of this, there exists no generally accepted definition of the phenomenom within the UN. By examining resolutions on terrorism, this thesis aims to evaluate the UN?s policy on terrorism since the end of the cold war until 2003. The results show that the UN?s attitude towards terrorism eversince the end of the cold war has been condemning, but that the the events of September 11th 2001 has contributed to an even more firm approach to the problem.

AbstractThe thesis investigates how the European Union promotes stability and security in the Mediterranean region. The aim is to analyse the European Union?s security ambitions with Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the Barcelona Process. An analytical framework with five sectors (military, political, economic, environmental and societal), based on the Copenhagen School?s theories about security sectors and securitization, is used for the analysis.

Ukraine shares a long history with Russia. In the early 21th century, Ukrainians wanted a freer Ukraine. Therefore the orange revolution started in 2004 by the Ukrainians and had a positive outcome. The situation later became worse because of the economic crisis in 2008 and a corrupt president. The pro-western politician Petro Poroshenko was elected to become president in 2014.

This essay tries, in different levels, to explain and create a deeper understanding for the phenomena ?private security companies?. By using Mary Kaldors theory about new wars, I will come to the conclusion that the insecurity that these wars create is an important part in understanding the emergence of a security need that these private security companies can provide. Later I investigate and explain howthe neoliberal privatization policy that is spreading through the world today has laid ground for development of the private security industry. When I have answered these questions I analyze how the private security companies can affect the state, war and peace both positively and negatively.

This essay concerns the notion of how immigration politics, defined as a political discursive structure that explains and justifies how and why the movement of people into a state's territory is restricted and controlled, has come to present its purpose not as solidarity with the 'immigrants' wanting to enter the state but as a protective measure for the state's citizens. By using discourse theory combined with theories from the International Relations field I attempt to explain why and how such a discourse positions 'immigrants' as a threat to the state.First, I concentrate on why an immigration politics discourse would position 'immigrants' as a threat. I argue that in order for people to construct their identity, the 'outside' what they "are not" has to be repressed. In the same way, the state has to dislocate the "outside" and create threats to uphold its supremacy. These boundaries are set to create a feeling of predictability and security, and ultimately they are a way of making peoples' "world" coherent.

The purpose of this study was to examine and explain Sweden?s defence and security policy during the twenty-first century. The method that was used in this research was a case study. The material that was used were government documents focusing on this area of policy, and numerous books concerning the theoretical perspectives on international relations and defence security policy. The study is of an explaining art and the analysis explains Sweden?s security and defence policy during the twenty-first century. The analysis explains this by testing it against a liberal and a realist view on international relations. The conclusion of the study is that Sweden?s defence and security policy has been liberal during this time period ? and still is.

Even though terrorism has been on the political agenda for several years there is no general accepted definition of the phenomena of terrorism. Several scientist do also apply that terrorism have changed after the 9/11-attacks. The purpose with this thesis was to analyze and compare the image of terrorism represented by the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Norway, in an attempt to draw conclusions about similarities and differentials. The material that was used was these four nations individual counter terrorism strategy. This was made by using idea analysis and self constructed dimensions based on earlier science about security, terrorism and international law.