Sometimes are words most familiar to us, the hardest ones to define. They seem self-explanatory. Political concepts are not just words that create ambivalence. They affect and shape people’s lives. This thesis engages with the present context of the European Union (EU) and investigates the meaning of Citizenship and Active citizenship. It poses the questions; what do we need citizenship for? The c

The international anti-corruption commission CICIG managed to achieve unexpected success when they dismantled a corruption ring within Guatemala’s government. The results are remarkable since Anti-Corruption Agencies (ACA) often fail due to societal corruption, which is a big problem in Guatemala. But CICIG is also controversial since it is an international organisation with the authority to inves

This thesis investigates why the variance in turnout for national and European Parliament elections is lower in France than in the United Kingdom. Based on the Most Similar System Design, it hypothesises that the variance is explained by the difference in the election campaigns conduct, following France’s and the United Kingdom’s switch of electoral systems for the European Parliament Elections. H

Education is commonly agreed upon as being one of the main drivers of national economic development which has led to a greater incorporation of education policies in development projects. Internationally, the World Bank is the single largest provider of expertise knowledge and financial aid to education development and as such they can play a key role in shaping policies and how problems are under

The European Union (EU) has been criticised for the lack of a social dimension but just recently the Commission proposed a new initiative; the European Pillar of Social Rights. This thesis focuses on civil society and on the different ideas concerning its role in European Social Policy. The study will draw on theories developed from Esping-Andersen’s welfare states models together with theories on

During the latest decades, active labour market policies have been launched in Sweden with the aim of reducing social exclusion and unemployment. In the wake of this policy, the idea-based public partnership – IOP was formed in 2010. Public institutions sign partnership agreements with actors from civil society to solve welfare problems. Through the IOP civil society has received a renegotiated ro

The purpose of this paper was to assess how the EU chemical regulation, REACH, affected the reform of the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act. It borrows from theories of policy diffusion and of the EU as a regulatory power, which were used to theorize two causal mechanisms potentially leading to convergence between the European and American chemical regulations, tested using a method of process-tra

To the reader acquainted with academic discourses about working time reduction, the public discussion about such a policy seems incomplete. This raises the question of how and why certain academic discourses are taken up in the public debate, while others are excluded. This thesis aims at developing a theoretical framework to explore this question in the light of social power relations. It thereby

Costa Rica and Argentina are two countries that form part of the vast region called Latin America. These two countries differ significantly in levels of corruption according to Transparency Internationals annual index of corruption globally. Why is this so and why are certain countries more corrupt than others? This overarching question has inspired this thesis. The study more specifically aims to

Germany is generally considered to be a country that is free trade friendly and had, at the start of the TTIP negotiations, a majority in favour of TTIP. Now however, Germany has amongst the lowest levels of public support of TTIP of all EU member states, while a majority at the same time remain positive of international trade and even increased trade with the US. Previous studies have shown that

The following thesis investigates political culture in Russia, focusing on the attendants in the protests for fair elections between 2011-2013. The study grounds in the ambivalent Russian youth that on the one hand are described as Putin’s ‘puppets’, and on the other hand are the main actors in protests against electoral fraud and corruption. The thesis focuses further in identifying support for p

This thesis focuses on panda diplomacy as a part of Chinese interest in soft power and its public diplomacy. The main purpose is to examine the role of the panda in Chinese foreign affairs. A previous research chapter is mapped out to understand the domestic discussion on soft power and the state of public diplomacy in Chinese foreign affairs. Pandas and the concept of panda diplomacy is then exam

The experience drawn from the wars in the early modern era in Europe suggest that interstate wars lead to centralization of power and resources. These wars are also strongly associated with state building and were a crucial component in the formation of the modern state. Though another dynamic can be perceived in contemporary warfare. The wars we see today differ in actors, motives, methods of war

Politics should be constituted by social representativeness in order to be conceptualised as democratic and legitimate. The set of politicians ought to be diverse and heterogeneous with the aim to include a wide spectrum of interest and concerns. The debate about women lacking power in politics was raised in the seventies. The political parties acted in response to the debate by implementing diffe

According to Ronald Inglehart, level of individual’s environmental concern is linked with grade of post-materialism resulting from physical and economic security experienced. As post-materialist individuals are considered to prioritize environmental protection over economic benefit, this study raises a question whether this change in values can provide a long-lasting solution for environmental cha

As the world becomes more global so does the conflicts and refugee movements. Whilst many have studied the tensions between the communities of host nations and refugee groups this thesis aims to explore what type of tension and conflict that occurs when one refugee group hosts another. In order to do so this thesis seeks to answer in what way, if any, the arrival of the Palestinian Refugees from S

According to the values of democracy, the governors should be held accountable for their actions and omissions by the governed. However, on a global level there is a deep deficit of democratic accountability. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, (IPU) whose members consist of almost all of the national parliaments in the world, claims to increase accountability within the UN system. This thesis uses the

This essay examines which civic ideals that are described in the Swedish nine-year compulsory school, the journal from the Swedish Teachers Union and the journal from the National Union of Teachers in Sweden. One of the most important tasks for the nine-year compulsory school is to educate future citizens, however, other actors strive to influence the values and ideals during this education. The S

In the middle of the 19th Century the American Henry Thoreau famously did an act of what we today call Civil Disobedience. Since then he has inspired lots of people with his act and today it has become a known and discussed phenomenon. In this thesis I’ll examine the phenomenon civil disobedience. I use a normative study to analyse whether you, from a feminist perspective, can justify three specif

This study aims to investigate what possibilities policymaking have, specifically the design of parental leave policies, to reach a more gender equal division of unpaid housework. The investigation poses the question, how the design of the Swedish and Danish parental leave policies, in respect of reserved ”daddy quotas”, have effected the long-term gender division of unpaid housework. There is no