The thesis explores the meaning of the concept "children's best" in relation to the social Swedish parental insurance debate from a post-structuralist view. The main material has been taken from daily news papers and the methodological as well as theoretical basis is provided for by Laclau & Mouffes discourse theory. In particular has the concept "empty signifiers" been

After the Cold War the nature and character of international conflict has changed dramatically, from traditional inter-state conflicts to protracted social conflicts. This constitutes a major challenge to contemporary peacebuilders, foremost the UN, but the expanding size and number of peacekeeping missions are threatening to erode UN resources. Peacebuilding scholars have different views on what

This essay is about the Northern Ireland Conflict and the Belfast Agreement. Its focus is on the development in Northern Ireland politics after the implementation of the Agreement which was ratified in a referendum. The essay is a case study which analyzes the progress towards an Assembly Government and powersharing between the unionists and the nationalists/republicans. The development is anal

Tanzania is today one of the greatest aid recipients in the world, but still - after over 45 years of huge amounts of aid - one of the poorest and least developed countries. How can that be? Civil society is said to benefit the democratization process, but has not succeed in Tanzania. Has the extensive aid had any impact? Our purpose is to investigate this set of problems. We are using theories c

In this thesis, I compare the economic development between one democracy, India, and one autocracy, China. The idea is to see whether democracy has anything to do with economic development in terms of growth and welfare. To my disappointment, I have found that democracy does not have a big impact on economic development. Instead, it seems that the economical development depends on the economical p

Since the abrupt ending of the Cold Wars the international system of politics has been dominated by the unipolar United States. Leading scholars within structural realism sees this stage as just a temporary condition for various reasons. They also target China as aspirant to embody the role of a balancer against USA and pole in a bi- or multipolar system. Some even argue they are destined for supe

This paper concerns the question of how one can frame a political message. I investigate how a political frame is bound both to the line of argumentation connected with a certain discourse and to the audience closely related to that discourse. I have chosen to study a single case where the policy process was characterized by a framing contest. The case shows how negotiating the new Services Direc

This thesis focuses on the perception of immigration and refugees in the common European refugee and immigration policy. It identifies different discourses and studies their development and interrelated power structures. Using the discourse theory of Laclau and Mouffe, documents from the European Council, the Commission, the Justice and Home Affairs Council and Parliament debates are analysed

This thesis investigates the Swedish Moderates? transformation under Fredrik Reinfeldt. The question at issue is as follows: What motive(s) were behind the Moderates? declared transformation after Reinfeldt became party leader? We define the actor who possesses the motives, which is Reinfeldt and his closest associates, and the action we want to explain. Indications of what motives the actor had

The means to political participation at the local level in Sweden are changing and this change is analyzed through a case study. The first aim is to explore the forms of public political participation in Swedish municipal Älvkarleby, namely public question time in local government, citizen motions and open meetings. A part of this is also to analyze he every day contact between citizens and repres

Ending conflict and generating peace is an undertaking challenged by many threats. This essay deals with one of those, spoiling, i.e. actions that aim to destroy peace processes. The spoiling concept is a young phenomenon in political science. The author argues that the concept nonetheless carries a number of flaws. Those are the concept's definitional vagueness, normative underpinnings, a

Did the West - USA, UK, France and West-Germany - overthrow the Shah of Iran year 1979? Many Iranians believe so. Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to examine the role of the West in the Iranian revolution. The question which will be answered is: what are the motives that talk for respectively against the statement that the West overthrew the Shah of Iran? The method used is motive analyzes

The processes of globalization interfere in every aspect of life. Like societies, nations and communities; individuals and their national identity are also under severe pressure from globalization. The purpose of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of how globalization transforms identity and belonging. Using written literature and qualitative interviews this thesis creates a theoretical ov

The relationship between free trade and the environment is often considered conflicting and the debates surrounding it are infected. My thesis deal with this conflict and how environmental concerns are integrated in three regional free trade agreements, North American Free Trade Agreement, The common market of the southern cone (MERCOSUR) and Southern African Development Community (SADC). I point

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and to increase the understanding of the negotiation process between the public- and the private sector in a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). I have chosen to explore the first ?real? PPP project in Denmark, the construction of Vildbjerg compulsory school in the municipality of Trehøje. This case study is based upon a qualitative method consisting of int

How stakeholders can influence EU in global environmental politics and what consequences and risks this brings are heavily debated. Some scholars argue that civil society are being disenfranchised from the global political arena while others seem to find them having influence in areas where they normally shouldn´t have any influence. In this this paper I will compare the Europan Union policy on GM

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