Recent public opinion research and elite deliberation has established a particular interest in galvanizing an EU army to better enforce a sense of integration, stability and strengthin the Union. This article proposes an alternative mechanism, privileging Richard Rosecrance’s concept of the ‘virtual state’ as anequally important and worthyfactor contributing to all those aspects. The fourdefining

In light of the ongoing pandemic, Covid-19, questions are raised about how well prepared countries have been. There are discussions that many countries have been poorly prepared, for example with regard to emergency storage of medical equipment and hospital care facilities. This may be due to various factors. An interesting aspect to investigate is whether the structure of a country’s political sy

Europe’s transition towards a net-zero emission economy and society, needs to be designed in a fair and equitable manner. Despite the urgency for action, the term Just Transition has increasingly been turned into a catchphrase that is diffi-cult to grasp. In the EU’s multilevel governance structure, municipalities as im-plementers of EU policies play a crucial role in the transformation process. T

The five Nordic countries have been comparable for a longer period of time. One aspect that isgoing to be studied in this research is if the different pension reform processes lead to the similaroutcome, which explains the success of approving a policy proposal. 20 pension reform cases inthe Nordics have been selected, which is based on the fact that they are different from oneanother.By using the

This essay concerns the view upon the role of leaders within the Swedish public administration. More specifically, it examines to which extent the views of traditional public administration (TPA), new public management (NPM) and public value management (PVM) is present throughout the recruitment of local government heads in Swedish municipalities. The research is designed with a use of mixed metho

In early 2015, one of the largest organizational reforms within public administration in Sweden was implemented - the reorganization of the Swedish Police Authority. The new organizational structure was intended to minimize the significant differences between the various regions’ results, by establishing one unified organization. The Swedish Agency for Public Management has since then evaluated th

Healthcare might seem like it is a purely medical issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both politics, law and the economy are all closely tied to healthcare. In this thesis I analyze the sensitive topic of healthcare through a critical understanding of the European and Swedish political economies from the 1970s until today. Europe serves as the broad picture, while Swedish healthcare po

Surrogate motherhood is a relatively controversial method of assisted reproduction, as it raises ethical questions about the potential risk of exploitation versus the right to self-determination, if it is done with the child’s best in mind and whether or not it is problematic for the family constellation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the approach to altruistic surrogate motherhood in Sw

In modern times, digital and technological developments have created the conditions for modernizing and changing the traditional way states, companies and large sections of the world population communicate with each other. During the digital and technological development, diplomacy has led to changes in what is usually considered to be traditional diplomatic communication. This study aims to repor

Utifrån teorier om att det finns en koppling mellan deskriptiv representation och substantiell representation, behövs kvinnor i politiken för att kvinnors intressen ska representeras. Ett sådant kvinnligt intresse kan antas vara att kommunernas kvinnofridsarbete ska vara välfungerande och prioriterat. Samtidigt visar statistik att kvinnor endast sitter på 36% av alla ordförandeposter (i kommunstyr

This study analyses the constitutive power of narratives in relation to a retroliberal paradigm shift in EU development policy by focusing on blended finance targeting sub-Saharan Africa. This study builds on the claims of Mawdsley (2015) that a reconfiguration of global development policy has challenged the North ontologically, which have been accompanied with the emergence of retroliberalism. Th

The Swedish government has presented its feminist foreign policy of focusing on women’s rights, representation, and resources as a step towards peace and security in the international community. This paper conducts an empirical study of Sweden’s actions in Colombia to understand how this policy works in practice. The peace agreement between the Colombian state and the leftist FARC-guerrilla was re

The European Union (EU) can no longer portray itself as a community of democracies since Hungary was recently classified as an electoral authoritarian regime. This was the culmination of a trend of democratic decline, which stands in contrast to the fundamental values the EU proudly denotes are its foundation. The thesis departs from this contradiction and finds theoretical relevance in R. Daniel

This essay examines, through an utilitarian perspective, the matter of torture as an interrogational technique. Through the application of the thought experiment called the ticking time bomb scenario, this essay’s aim is to question what constitutes an extreme case where a state might legitimately apply torture to hinder an imminent threat. This is applied to the case of the CIA and the enhanced i

In 2009 when President Nasheed began his presidency in the Maldives, he launched a unique environmental project that put the country at the fore front of international environmental politics and the battle against climate change. However, in the past ten years a new picture of the Maldives has occurred where those in power seem to put more effort into development and economic growth than environme

Developing wind farms is a long and costly task. Assessing the potential of a site is a major part of the development of a wind project. Reanalysis, that are modelling of the wind speed made from scattered wind data across the world (from satellites, weather stations for example), can help to fulfill this step as they are improving their accuracy with each new release. Among them is EMD-WRF, a rea

The right to participate and influence politics is fundamental in all democracies, and the possibility to do so should be equal among all citizens. In reality however, participation tends to mirror underlying structures in society. This thesis will examine the role of the internet as an arena for civic engagement due to inconsistencies in the existing research. The question is whether the internet

The aim of this study is to examine and gain a further understanding of the Swedish parliament’s approach to lobbying. Furthermore, to shed light on the democratic problems and values that underpin whether politicians in the parliament believe that regulations regarding lobbying should be introduced or not. The method that has been used is textual analysis. An analytical tool has been developed ba

In 2016 Mörbylånga municipality, on the southern part of the Swedish island Öland, suffered from historically low levels of ground water. The water scarcity made the municipality prioritize the question radically. The aim of this in-depth case study is to analyze the process of solutions to the water scarcity in the municipality, using the theory Multiple Streams Framework. The main research quest

The thesis is a study of two Swedish royal academies, The Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences and The Royal Society of Naval Sciences. The academies are chosen for the unique connection they have with a Swedish administrative authority - namely the Armed Forces, and the very special arena in which they act. The study builds a theory of what the royal Swedish military science academies are a case