Democratic theory and research have lately been criticized in several fields. A classic and contested question is the role of the working class in democracy and democratization. Yet, it has been overshadowed by elite strategies that have been at the core of the most influential analytical framework in regard to late twentieth-century transitions. This is where some of the criticism has been laid.

This paper focuses on labor market policies across countries belonging to the social-democratic welfare state regime. Since 1980 Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have undergone a number of reforms and modifications within labor market, which identify the shift from traditional politics of expansion towards what many refer to as welfare retrenchment or restructuring. This paper attempts to obser

The debate regarding grades and in what year they are given to children, is a hot topic in Sweden and has been especially for the last couple of years. Mass media and the opposition have steered the debate into mainly being about the need for politicians to show that their position is supported by experts. The main purpose of the paper is to understand the symbolic use of expert knowledge in this

The goal of this master thesis is to set up a low cost automated robotic test system which can later be reproduced to greatly increase test coverage. Mostly through experimental research this thesis will find good components to use and evaluate these from a performance and cost perspective. It will also develop computer vision algorithms needed and automation software for the final set up. The per

Otto Kirchheimer coined the theory about the catch-all party 1966 as he observed a transformation of the West European party system. The transformation initiated with declining economic class and religious gaps in the societies of advanced democracies. This resulted in the electorate becoming more difficult to place according to specific ideological partition. Without a firm electoral base, the po

The signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on the 4th of April 1949 became a watershed for the Nordic states and divided the normally very homogenous groupinto two separate camps. By examining this phenomenon from three different methodological approaches, this thesis aims to explain why the division occurred. The methodological approaches are sectioned into macro meso and micro levels in order to d

The concept of poverty as a development and a security issue has been fairly commonplace since the end of Cold War and poverty has been gaining importance in the security agenda of the EU throughout the years. Thus Lisbon Treaty has legally and instructionally enhanced the Union’s capacities to ensure policy coherence and has given poverty reduction utmost importance among its development cooperat

Top politicians are increasingly using social media to create perceptions of authenticity but social media challenges taken-for-granted notions of authenticity, as people cannot see who is the creator of the perceived authenticity. Applying a grounded theory approach, this study conducted in-depth interviews with communication advisors assigned to Danish top politicians and developed a theory of h

Reshoring is a novel phenomenon and not much research can be found about it. That is why any insight about this phenomenon is an asset. A gap is filled through providing a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of reshoring in European Union. It is also going to be analysed if the EC’s current policies on fulfilling the goals of reindustrialization are also effective on increasing reshoring activi

The use of detention centers for refugees in Sweden has been criticized over the last couple of years. The lack of resources and the shortage of accommodations have resulted in the use of alternative facilities such as police detentions and prisons. These alternative facilities has since 1994 been criticized by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture. But still the alternative detenti

This thesis deals with the Swedish regionalization process by examining the latest official report on matter, Statens regionala förvaltning – en angelägen reform (SOU 2012:81). The report contains two major propositions for reform that this study aims to understand. The first concerns where the responsibility should rest for regional development, and the second addresses the county government (Län

OECD and other organizations argues in favor of the implementation of regulations on conflict of interest for higher civil servants and public officials, often including quarantine time for these employees when changing jobs. They do this with the argument that it will increase the population’s confidence in their governments, which again is claimed to be a cornerstone of the functioning of the st

This thesis concerns the impact of instrumental benefits and norms on state behaviour in international relations. This is studied on the case of the EU’s and Japan’s initiation of enforcement against North Korea in the UN Human Rights Council, which has garnered increased attention since 2013 when a commission of inquiry successfully put the issue on the international community’s agenda. I ask w

Given the increasing world population, prices and greenhouse gas emissions, there is a need to innovate agriculture in order to accelerate crop productivity sustainably. These issues are compounded in developing countries, which often face severe droughts, famine, and have limited access to drinking water. Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are the proposed solution to these concerns, with an i

This thesis aims to study the representation of female and male terrorists in two daily media sources to see if a gendered portrayal is present. Its aim is also to see what portrayal is present in documents regarding counter-terrorism. Feminist theories within the study of International Relations are used together with theories regarding media’s framing effect on policy makers. The country that se

Den senaste tiden har ifrågasättandet av diagnosen skakvåld fått mycket uppmärksamhet, bl.a. eftersom HD i NJA 2014 s. 699, just på grund av ovan nämnda ifrågasättande, friade den tilltalade från anklagelserna om skakvåld. I ett annat fall beviljade HD resning för en man som tidigare dömts för skakvåld. Syftet med denna uppsats är att granska diagnosen skakvåld ur ett juridiskt perspektiv. Det skeRecently the questioning of the diagnosis ’shaken baby syndrome’ has received attention, partly because the Supreme Court in a judgment, because of the poor scientific evidence base for the diagnosis, acquitted the defendant from the accusations of shaking his baby. In another case the Supreme Court granted a man, who had been sentenced to prison for killing his daughter by violent shaking, a new

The city of Malmö has seen growing media attention recent years in light of increased reporting on its anti-Semitism. The media image is one where the Jewish population is constantly harassed and threatened. This study aims to clarify whether or not there has been an actual increase of anti-Semitism in Malmö, what might be causing it, and with this shed light on modern anti-Semitism. Limiting the

This study is about changes of institutional values in the procedur of public procurement. The results show that there is a change of focus from government values to market values in the policies and recommendations from the Swedish Competition Authority. The method of the study is a text analysis of the material presented on the homepage of the Swedish Competion Authority and also covers analysis

This essay tries to find out what Isis-supporters tweets about and how that can be explained. Since the Islamic State, Isis, took large swaths of Syria and Iraq the activities from sympathisers on social media have been noticed all over the world. To analyse the tweets this essay uses a theory inspired by social movement studies. From this theory four categories are derived which together with thr

The ‘New Public Management’ wave of the 90s is considered to have had a great impact on the values that control the Swedish public administration. Arguably, it has led to an increased representation of economic values within the public administration and, as a result, democratic values have been neglected. This qualitative case study has analyzed the democratic and economic values within the publi