Japan's foreign and security policy has seen some substantial changes as a result of events like the first Gulf war and 9/11th. This has been taken as proof, by some, that Japan is abandoning its antimilitaristic stance and pursuing a more traditional hard power role through military means. This essay aims to explore if these shifts have coincided with any substantial shifts away from antimili

This thesis examines the process of securitization of the environmental issue in the United States. By using the theories of sectoral security and securitization by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever, commonly known as the Copenhagen school we go beyond the traditional security frames and examine where the environmental issue in the United States stand today within the securitization spectrum. The securit

The acts of promoting local business and implementing efforts to appear as an attractive location for potential business are rather new activities among Swedish municipalities. The knowledge about how these activities are organised and what strategies are perused are fairly limited. In addition the structures concerning cooperation between municipalities for economic policies contain incentives bo

Title: Hymns - a way to simplicity and beauty. The purpose of this paper is to study what makes hymns appreciated. In a questionnaire, 42 individuals responded to questions concerning lyrics, music, the hymn as a whole, their personal relationship to hymns and their church commitment. They also stated their gender and age. My aim has been to discover whether there are similarities and differences

Abstract In Europe, equality between men and women is constitutionally protected and the member states of the European Union are obliged to counteract gender discrimination within their states both according to the Treaty of Rome and the European Convention on Human Rights. Over the last years there have been several debates in Europe about whether the Islamic veil is consistent with secularity a

This thesis deals with the issues of participation and influence in the multicultural society. The aim with the study is twofold, first to identify determinants improving participation and influence in this context, and second to see if the ecouragement of a strong civil society in ethnic segregated areas is a possible way forward to a multicultural democracy. This is conducted through a case stud

Abstract Cities are once again becoming the locus of economic, social and political processes. The effect of these processes on the city is two-fold: one one hand they threaten to fragment and dislocate the city and the actors within them, on the other hand they give actors within cities new opportunities to react and mobilize resources towards different strategies of integration. The latter give

The Oresund Region, consisting of the Swedish county of Scania and the Danish islands of Sealand, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm, is widely recognised as a successful example of European cross-border co-operation. The purpose of this region building project is to form a cross-border fully integrated functional region in order to accomplish a high level of economic growth and employment. This thesi

Då en demokratisk transition, där begreppet transition refererar till den situation som uppstår mellan två olika politiska regimer, avslutas tar en konsoliderande process vid. Denna konsoliderande process ämnar till att förankra det demokratiska styrelseskicket i samhället. Begreppet konsoliderad demokrati är i sig omdebatterat. En transition, som kan vara en övergång eller en återgång, till demo

This text concerns itself with war, the just war theory, and the application of that doctrine on the ?war on terrorism?. I present different views on the theory's place in the discourse, its relevance for unconventional wars followed by the analyses of above mentioned empirical situation. Particular interest is given the criteria concerning proportionality, both ad bellum and in bello, due to

The aim of this study is to describe a group of youths in compulsory care at a SiS institution in the south of Sweden. The study focuses on intelligence (measured with WISC-III) and self-report, i. e. what the youths think of themselves (measured with Jag tycker jag är). Attempts were made to see if background factors (based on information from the standardized ADAD-interview) seem to be coherent

The aim of this paper was to examine how social workers' comprehension of the need of financial aid exists in, and is influated by, the organisation they work in. To investigate this, we asked ourself questions concerning how the social worker view the way that the finicial aid-system and work surrounding it is formed, whether the social worker's understanding of the need of financial aid

The Japanese conjectural and hortative particle bee is the main characteristic of Tohoku dialect, and has been rigorously studied by Tamakake Gen at Tohoku University. This thesis presents for the first time in English his semantic categorization of bee, while complementing this with a detailed description of the particle's grammatical properties. The stereotypic bee, as can be seen in the Fin

Den europeiska identiteten har blivit en viktig del i EU:s ambitioner att skapa ett större förtroende hos medborgarna. Genom att betona de humanistiska värderingarna, den västliga kristenheten och den liberala demokratin konstruerar EU en europeisk identitet, där "Turken" sedan länge varit Europas "Andre" vars egenskaper har ändrats i takt med Europas förutsättningar. Turkiet

The European Union's (EU) external appearance is often described as a ?civilian power? (CP). However, due to increasing military capabilities and coercive approaches in international politics, it apparently moves towards a ?harder? kind of power. Applying a role-theoretical approach, the study explores what kind of power the EU actually constitutes and thus studies whether the EU's charact

The differences between the sexes when it comes to land and property ownership are enormous. This paper deals with issues concerning women's land and property rights. The aim of the study is to investigate what general factors are effecting women's access to and control of land. In addition, this paper aims to explore the effects of liberal formalism in relation to gender equality and the

Uppsatsen behandlar vilken inverkan på statssuveränitet som förhållandet mellan statliga, respektive icke-statliga aktörer har. Två statscentrerade perspektiv på internationell politik, realismen och liberalismen, utgör de definitionsmässiga begränsningarna av statssuveränitet. Aktörerna belyses i en fallstudie där trafficking i Thailand utgör det empiriska exemplet. Den teoretiska ansatsen utgörs

The purpose of this composition was to examine which international and Swedish laws exist to govern the protection of asylum seekers claiming persecution on the grounds of sexual orientation. Additionally I wanted to look at what the need for such a right to refuge would be based upon, i.e. why asylum seekers ought to be granted such protection. In order to fulfil my objectives I based my material

The international role of the European Union has often been described as the one of a 'normative power', which has the weight to influence the minds and practices of other peoples by its mere attractiveness. However, Human Rights Watch's 2007 World Report concludes; that even if the European Union has the credibility and the power to 'fill the leadership void' in terms of human

Many nation states in Southeast Asia have ratified human rights conventions without abiding by their stipulations. Among factors such as poverty and political disinclination something which has widely been called 'Asian values' is seen by some as a reason for why certain human rights laid out in UN conventions are not adhered to. The crux of the conflict is the claim that particular Asian