In the Swedish context Swedish language skills are considered to be a crucial factor for an individual's ability to establish him/herself in society as well as on the labour market. Despite this, the Swedish organisation Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) has been exposed to extensive critique: Not enough students manage to establish themselves on the labour market, but get trapped in SFI. The purpo

During the last decade or so, there has been an uprising for cosmopolitan perspectives in political science. Cosmopolitanism seems to be the new modern approach to global problems. But various conceptions of cosmopolitanism are being used in the debate. Therefore, I look into the different positions to try to distil out some coherence and find different usable sketches when adapting a cosmoplitan

Our thesis is a single-case study in which we try to answer the question: Why didn?t the lobbygroup Eurogroup for Animals get enough support for their demands in the latest regulation regarding transport of animals? As an example of their cooperation with their memberorganisations, we have chosen the Swedish organisation Djurens Rätt. Through interviews with key-persons involved in the process and

The relationship between the government and organised interest in Sweden has changed. Formally considered as a good example of a corporatist state the country during the last 15 years or so experienced a more pluralistic system. This thesis is a qualitative study which discusses how interest groups seek to influence decision makers and policy thru lobbying and public opinion. It also examines how

In this essay I discuss and analyse if we can witness any signs on regional dimension due to regional representation from our elected representatives in the five constituencies Malmö, Blekinge, Norrbotten, Uppsala and Stockholm. Two seperate terms of office between 1991-94 and 1998-2002 has been compared. In political science there has been much debate about the relationship between voters and the

This thesis studies how the Swedish government articulates social exclusion within the spring budget of 2007. Through a discourse theoretical approach, inspired by Ernest Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the empirical findings are reconstructed through the nodal point of labour and two chains of equivalence, based upon the duality between employment and unemployment. By viewing social exclusion as a phe

Contemporary developments in sustainability governance have enhanced environmental policy and induced comprehensive institutional reforms in several countries. Theoretically, this has also induces a debate on the role of the state for reflexive and ecological sustainability governance. Informed by Eckersley's political theory of the green state, this thesis offer an analysis of the prospects

This study focuses on international mediation and mediation theory. The aim of the study is to bring into light, a critique on already exsisting mediation theory and the need to oversimplify generalisations and results. This study focuses on a comparison between Richard Holbrooke and Carl Bildt, and their roles? as mediators during the war in Bosnia and Hercegovina 1995. I have deliberatly chosen

The concept of a standard of civilization evolved in wake of the European colonial expansion, dividing societies by various shades of ?civilization?, which essentially referred to the level of European resemblance. Whereas that classical standard of civilization is obsolete, the phenomenon might still be occurring under different labels but with similar traits. In this thesis, I derive a set of ab

Following essay discusses the possibilities of using a gender perspective when studying local governance within a Swedish context. Governance is an international concept used to describe a more lose, informal and network based way of doing politics The main purpose for conducting this essay is that traditional theoretical frameworks used in the study of local politics are not enough to fully conce

Before the general election 2006 all of the Swedish parties represented in the Parliament held their political party conference. At each political party conference, the leader for respectively party held their opening speech, a speech that was covered by the press. This essay deals with how the press covers these speeches. Analysing how the different speeches were covered by the press, some tenden

Abstract In this thesis we analyze how institutions describe the dichotomy between ?problem? and ?resource? when dealing with young adults. We also analyze the consequences of this dichotomy as it involves the younger generation's participation and group identity in today's society. Dichotomies and New Institutionalism Theory is the base for this case study completed in Malmö, Sweden. We

Its been long known that militia groups all over the word use refugee camps as recruitment sites, but not much research has been conducted on the subject. Not until recently when Achvarina and Reich presented their new theory linking the level of security in the camps with the prevalence of recruitment. The theory implies that actors such as UNHCR could act on the problem and therefore act as a co

In august 2006 the Swedish government official report (SOU) about the structural discrimination was published and caused a lot of debate in the media. This paper is about the report as such, as much as the academic quarrel it caused in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter. My aim is to explore why the report is so provocative and what the debate actually is about. I use discourse analysis both as a method

In classic academic social studies of East Europe, terms as Communism and Post-Communism are commonly used to describe the main characteristics of this geographically imagined area. This paper makes a not so frequently seen attempt to apply Post Colonial Theory for the same field. With start point in Post Colonial theoretical writers, the author wants to find a East European Post Colonial version

Det har inom krigföringen skett en utveckling mot riskfri krigsföring där västliga stater, och då främst USA och Storbritannien är de främsta representanterna. Denna typ av krig är ett resultat av en kombination av (1) minskad inhemsk tolerans för förluster i krig och (2) en teknologisk utveckling inom militären. Denna typ av krigföring har kommit att kallas spektakelkrig och uppvisar en oförmåga

This thesis gives an account of the military interventions carried out by the Turkish military in 1960, 1971 and 1980. By applying Finer's calculus as a method of analyzing military interventions, efforts are made to link the behavior of the military during the coups with the Turkish democratization process.

The point of departure for this essay is the observation that the municipality of Lund is giving priority to handicap associations over other forms of associations. This act can be regarded as trespassing into the realm of civil society. In respect of this, two aspects appear to be particularly interesting to explore. The first is to determine which perspective of freedom the municipality of

Under 1980 och 90-talen skedde stora strukturförändringar inom arbetslivet och reaktioner på förändringar blev ett område som man arbetat alltmer med. Den ökade effektiviseringen och de därmed ökade kraven i arbetslivet har lett till en markant ökning av arbetsoförmågan. Forskning har visat att psykosociala faktorer har stor betydelse för hur man mår. Syftet med uppsatsen är att få förståelse för

This paper has bearing on the subject of foreign policy analysis and decision-making, but is nonetheless important to peace and conflict studies due to its emphasis on nuclear weapons and deterrence. I have constructed a theoretical framework for the analysis of foreign policy decision-making that I set out to test on a crucial case. The framework is crosscutting, and takes into consideration