The Lisbon Strategy formulated that the EU shall be one of the most vital economies in the world. In order to perform that role, it has been argued that the EU must be more coherent. To increase cohesion, the structural funds and cohesion policy were introduced. Included in the structural funds are also the horizontal principles of equality, integration, diversity and sustainable development inten

Sports and politics are inevitably intertwined, even if this notion seldom gets the space it deserves in academic circles. This thesis aims at lifting and theorizing around the phenomenon of boycott as a foreign policy tool in connection to the Olympic Games, focusing on the American boycott of the Moscow Olympics of 1980. I highlight and discuss some of the factors and actors behind the boycott d

Denna studies syfte är att studera vilka bilder som politiker från Storbrittaniens tre största partier skapar av de stridande parterna i Syrienkonflikten. Detta sker genom studiet att genomöra en diskursanalys. Studien belyser vidare hur dessa bilder kan bidra till att skapa möjligheter och begränsningar för den brittiska utrikespolitiken i samband med konflikten. Till sist försöker studien även b

This thesis deals with the significance of institutional structures and their outcomes when combating corruption. It investigates Rwanda's outstanding progress in implementing anti-corruption policies and building strong institutions to fight corruption. Concepts such as the quality of government and good governance has been used to explain the country’s success within the anti-corruption fram

The latest research by PISA informed that Swedish pupils performances are lower than average among countries in OECD. In addition Swedish teachers have low salaries compared to other countries. There are researchers that have been analyzing the correlation between salaries and school results before but the studies are mainly cross-nations based. The explanation for the correlation has been that hi

In scholarly literature, it is widely acknowledged that ‘the shadow of hierarchy’, hence the threat of disadvantageous Community legislation, is an important con-cept in European social dialogue (ESD), where European social partners – that is organised labour and management – are given the chance to negotiate binding agreements on some aspects of European labour and social policy. While the shadow

This thesis examines the justification of civil disobedience. The main focus of the thesis is to highlight the normative arguments on both sides of the debate. The thesis consists of four parts. The first part defines what civil disobedience is and how it came to be. The second part of the thesis deals with the justification of civil disobedience from a democratic standpoint. The third part examin

I samband med offentliga uppköpserbjudanden uppstår emellanåt ett behov för aktiemarknadsaktörer att göra uttalanden gentemot aktiemarknaden avseende sina avsikter. När aktiemarknadsaktören senare av olika anledningar kan behöva avvika från denna tidigare gjorda avsiktsförklaring uppstår frågan om under vilka förutsättningar en sådan avvikelse kan godtas. Uppsatsens grundläggande syfte är således During the course of a public takeover offer, the need for a stock market actor to make statements towards the market regarding their intentions occasionally arises. For various reasons, the stock market actor may at a later stage deem it necessary to diverge from this previously made statement of intention and the question of under what circumstances such a deviation is acceptable emerges. Theref

In 2010, for the first time in the history of Sweden, a party with a racist and nazi past got elected to the Swedish parliament. The media tried to stop this by not giving the party any media exposure during the election in 2010, but that didn’t stop the Swedish democrats from getting elected. Now the Swedish democrats have been in the parliament for almost four years. The purpose of this essay

More than ever before the European integration project reached a point of political and economic crisis that cannot be dismissed. The main academic and political solutions presented for the crisis is to refocus on European citizens, enhance their rights and make them part of the system, a move considered to be a response to democratic deficit. The present thesis takes the discussion one step furth

Representative democracy is the most fast growing political system in the world. The politician, however, plays various roles within his representative assignment. This paper shows that there are divergence between the representatives’ normative position and her political actions. The aim of this study is to understand what representation is and what we can expect from the representative. The main

In January 2014 a reformed CFP came into force in the EU. The reformed policy tackled many of the policy field’s troubled areas and offered realistic solutions for elements of the policy which had been criticised for years by academics, stakeholders and even EU institutions. The purpose of this thesis is to explain how the reformed policy came about and in doing so it adopts a case study design wh

Populism is a phenomenon gaining popularity throughout Europe and has been enhanced by the current economic crisis. The aim of this thesis is to examine the image of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in the media and analyse whether it can be qualified as populist. I have included an overview of previous researcher on populism, in order to define it. In addition to the theories of knowl

A number of non-EU members – or third states – have chosen to participate in EU CSDP operations. This thesis seeks to answer why one of them, Iceland, has chosen to do so despite not being a member of the Union and not having any armed forces which are traditionally used in such activities. States have various motivations for participating in international crisis management operations and the same

The purpose of this thesis has been to seek, by political theoretical discussion, an effective norm or standard with to evaluate three critical neoliberal reforms in recent Swedish housing policy. By discussing the theories of what the government can and should do, 6 normative principles are formed to evaluate these neoliberal reforms. The three neoliberal reforms that are evaluated is: Marketisat

The process of constructing the individual must be understood as the production of a specific political subject. How the individual is constructed affects how the individual understand its identity framework and its perceived role as a political actor. The aim of this thesis is to compare the discourse production between the judicial discourse and the facebook discourse of the individual with the

This thesis examines the possibility of a connection between perceived European identity in the member states, and turnout in the 2009 European parliament. Through identifying what constitutes a European identity and then applying this definition to a survey regarding geographical identity by the EVS and the 2009 election turnout. Due to lack of significance no correlation could be found between

In 1987, the international community adopted the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer – subsequently labelled as one of the most successful environmental treaties of our time. In 1992, Peter Haas emerged with a study on epistemic communities and their efforts to protect stratospheric ozone. According to Haas’ research, epistemic community members – consisting of United Stat

This study examines election promises in order to analyze what determines whether politicians can fulfill their campaign promises or not. The study hence makes a contribution to the scarce literature in the area. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised to bring the troops home from Iraq and shut down the Guantánamo bay. This study tries to answer why only one of these election

This study examines how and why threat images get a breakthrough. What decides which threat pictures will be on the agenda and which will not? Often it can seem like the most dangerous threats are the most prioritized. But threat images can be exaggerated and manipulated, which means there can be a lot of different factors that decide which threat picture will get a breakthrough. On April 24, 200