As an arms-exporting state, Sweden has certain legal responsibilities to ensure that licences authorizing arms exports are in line with existing laws, policies and guidelines. Apart from that, the government has an ethical responsibility to ensure that arms are not exported to countries where they are used to oppress the population and commit human rights abuses. Despite this, questionable and unethical deals are authorized without any accountability being demanded. The main purpose of the essay is to perform a critical ethical analysis of the Swedish arms trade policy, to develop the application of policies in relation to arms trade, and to suggest additional criteria to make this trade more ethically justifiable. Among other things, it is asked whether different goals and principles come into conflict, and if they do, does the “right” goal or principle win? Also, which criteria are necessary to make arms trade ethically justifiable? The essay outlines some additional criteria which could be useful in making the trade ethically justifiable and performs a text analysis on selected documents relating to the arms trade in order to delineate where the inherent issues lie. The conclusion reached is that the different policies, mostly, harmonize, although security and human rights concerns sometimes conflict, which leads to potential serious outcomes. The existing legal and policy framework provides for a robust foundation, although inadequate as contentious arms exports are authorized. However, the imposition of the suggested criteria, especially criteria pertaining to establishing responsibility and accountability in the existing structures, should prove useful. / Sverige har, som en vapenexporterande stat, en laglig förpliktelse att säkerställa att licenser som godkänner vapenexporter är i linje med existerande lag, policy och riktlinjer. Utöver det har regeringen ett etiskt ansvar att säkerställa att vapen inte exporteras till länder där de används för att förtrycka invånarna och begå människorättsbrott. Trots detta auktoriseras tvivelaktiga och oetiska exporter utan att någon hålls ansvarig. Huvudsyftet med uppsatsen är att utföra en kritisk etisk analys på svensk vapenexportpolicy, att utveckla tillämpningen av policy i relation till vapenexporten och att föreslå ytterligare kriterier för att säkerställa att exporten blir mer etisk berättigad. Bland annat ställs frågan om olika mål/principer kommer i konflikt med varandra, och om de gör det, vinner det ”rätta” målet/principen? Vilka kriterier är nödvändiga för att göra vapenexporten etiskt berättigad? Uppsatsen föreslår några ytterligare kriterier som kan tänkas vara användbara i strävandet att göra exporten mer etisk berättigad och utför en textgranskning samt analys på utvalda dokument som har ett samband med exporten för att utröna vari konflikter förekommer. Den nådda slutsatsen är att de olika policyerna, för det mesta, harmoniserar med varandra, dock föreligger det ibland en konflikt mellan mänskliga rättigheter och säkerhetsintressen, en konflikt som kan få potentiellt allvarliga konsekvenser. De existerande lagarna och policy tillhandahåller en robust grund, dock är den otillräcklig då problematiska exporter fortfarande förekommer. Dock skulle införandet av de föreslagna kriterierna, framförallt kriterierna som handlar om att etablera ansvar och ansvarskrävande i de existerande strukturerna, vara användbara.

Purpose: While research on state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have been lagging, even less can be found on municipally-owned enterprises (MOEs). The authors intend to use literature covering SOEs and apply them on MOEs in an analogue fashion. This study aims to uncover similarities and differences between the two aforementioned types of public ownership and contribute to the field of MOEs. This would allow for future researchers of MOEs to know in what way previous findings on SOEs is accurate and where extra caution must be placed. The authors will also consider the implications of institutional theory and how this can be used to understand the reality MOEs find themselves in. Design/methodology/approach: The authors has employed a qualitative approach where eleven MOEs have been interviewed. All of the eleven enterprises were located in the Swedish province of Värmland. The interviews were conducted in a semi-structured fashion and the analysis was achieved through a mix of selective and open coding. Findings: Enterprises matched expectations from stakeholders, where higher demands were met with greater social care and lower expectations facilitated a business approach. Furthermore, enterprises viewed their owners as the most important stakeholders and were willing to make decisions that favored them, even if other stakeholder groups disbenefit from this. Furthermore, a combination of actively searching for legitimacy and relying on institutional theory was employed by the MOEs, which could possibly contribute to institutional theory. Research limitations/implications for future research: Further research into these matters are of interest to build on the understanding of SOEs and apply them to MOEs. It is suggested to conduct a study including MOEs of greater size, as most organizations included in this study were too small to ‘successfully’ implement non-acquiescence matters such as decoupling and mission drift. Furthermore, a case-study of a single organization would perhaps shed some light on this matter, as this study’s focus on eleven enterprises has a bit of a tendency to only scratch the surface.

By following a climate-friendly diet, consumers have the potential to reduce climate change. However, despite the growing awareness of the climate-friendly food options that are available, consumers still choose foods with a high carbon footprint. Following a survey design, this study aimed to determine the extent to which four psychological processes (denial, conflicting goals and aspirations, tokenism, and interpersonal influence) limit consumers’ climate-friendly food choices in South Africa. Data were collected from 151 participants using the Climate-friendly Food Choices Scale and the Psychological Barriers Scale. Regression analysis indicated that conflicting goals and aspirations and denial were the two main psychological barriers to climate-friendly food choices. Overall the barriers were negatively associated with climate-friendly food choices. Gender did not produce a significant effect in the study. Different age groups varied with regards to the extent to which they experienced the psychological barriers, but they did not differ significantly with regards to how often they made climate-friendly food choices. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)