The purpose of this essay is to examine why some countries in the world decided to support Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, while others did not. The essay is a type of case study, with Kosovo’s independence as the main focus. For the purpose of the essay, main focus will be on the United States of America, Russia, China and Serbia. The countries’ actions will be examined through the theoretical perspectives presented in the book Essence of Decision: Rational Actor Model, Organizational Behavior and Governmental Politics. The conclusion drawn is that countries put their own interests before the good of the international community, sometimes putting other countries at risk of conflict or war, to achieve their own goals. This can be seen in the cases of Russia and China especially, as they did not accept Kosovo’s independence partly because they have similar conflicts in their own states to that of Serbia’s with Kosovo.

Zugleich: Diss. Heidelberg, 2008. / Register. Literaturverz.

This thesis is about whether the political majority has an impact on gender mainstreaming at the committee decisions. Gender mainstreaming is the main strategy in Sweden in order to increase equality. It has been the dominant strategy for over 20 years, but gender equality is still not achieved. Political majority could have an impact on how municipalities work with gender mainstreaming. I study three municipalities, the municipality of Örebro, the municipality of Umeå and the municipality of Jönköping and how decisions have been made in the committee responsible for preschool and primary school in each municipality. Therefore, I study in this thesis if there are any similarities and differences between the municipalities with gender mainstreaming and if political majority can have an impact on gender mainstreaming. I have chosen to use a comparative case study to compare the gender mainstreaming of these three municipalities, using a qualitative content analysis. The analysis is based on the municipalities' gender equality plans, strategic plans and meeting protocols using the Municipal Population Model and the CEMR-declaration (Council of European Municipalities and Regions). The conclusions of the analysis are that there are similarities and differences in how municipalities use gender mainstreaming in their decisions. The similarities depends on that all municipalities are based on the same strategy and that everyone is based on the CEMR-declaration and the differences are that they have formed the goals different. The conclusion is that political majority does not have such a major impact on gender mainstreaming. Keywords: gender mainstreaming, municipalities, political parties, CEMR-declaration

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Yes

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Thule Möbler AB in Kungsör, Sweden, is a retailer and manufacturer of furniture and fixtures for offices. They have previously worked with a general environmental declaration which describes the company’s overall environmental work, but they see a need for declaring the environmental performance of specific products. It is seen as an advantage if the environmental declaration can be used in product development to integrate consideration for environmental issues in the development process as well. The company also wish to develop and improve an existing series for office-storage, called Space. The work conducted in this paper is based on a product development process combined with a general research process which consists of a pre-study that describes the work of developing an environmental declaration and a case-study that includes the testing of the environmental declaration in the development of the office-storage Space. The methods used for developing the environmental declaration are literature reviews on standards for environmental declaration, scientific papers on the subject, environmental declarations from other companies and literature concerning productdevelopment tools and their structure. The use of the environmental declaration as product-information is tested and evaluated by trials on the intended user while the use of the environmental declaration as a product development tool is tested through the case-study. The case-study is based on a product development process that includes different product development tools, user-studies and analysis of the market. The user-studies and market-analysis are conducted as observation, questionnaires,interviews and a small literature review. The result is described both for the pre-study with the design of the environmental declaration and the case-study with the outcome of the product development. The environmental declaration consists of three documents, one template to be filled, one instruction for filling out the template, one spreadsheet containing the data to fill in and one example of a filled in declaration. The product consists of modules in the size 800x400x400mm that are connected by connection-brackets. The modules can be fitted with doors and handles, shelves and partitions, base and attachments for small-storage. The modules can be placed in six different ways in relation to each other and can be rearranged when needed. They can also be places free-standing or against a wall. The result of the case-study shows that the environmental declaration can be used as a tool for product development concerning evaluation and selection. The try-outs that are conducted indicates that the environmental declaration also is suitable for use as product-information. It is however important that the environmental declaration is continuously updated to ensure the data is correct, it should also be expanded to include other products. The developed product should be tested for strength and stability in accordance with Swedish standards. / Företaget Thule Möbler AB i Kungsör tillverkar och säljer möbler och inredning för kontor. De har sedan tidigare arbetat med en generell miljödeklaration som beskriver företagets övergripande miljöarbete men ser ett behov av att även redovisa miljörelaterade egenskaper för enskilda produkter. Det är en fördel om miljödeklarationen kan användas vid produktutveckling för att integrera miljöfrågor även under utvecklingsprocessen. Företaget vill dessutom utveckla en befintlig möbelserie, förvaringsserien Space. Arbetet baseras på en produktutvecklingsprocess kombinerad med en forskningsprocess bestående av en förstudie där miljödeklarationen tas fram efterföljt av en fallstudie där deklarationen testas under utvecklingen av förvaringsserien Space. Miljödeklarationen tas fram med hjälp av litteraturstudier innehållande standarder för miljödeklarationer, vetenskapliga artiklar i ämnet, befintliga miljödeklarationer från andra företag samt litteratur kring produktutvecklingsverktyg och dess uppbyggnad. Användandet av miljödeklarationen som produktinformation testas och utvärderas genom utprovning av användare medan deklarationen som produktutvecklingsverktyg testas i fallstudien. Fallstudien baseras på en produktutvecklingsprocess där olika produktutvecklingsverktyg, användarstudier och marknadsanalyser används. Användarstudier och marknadsanalys genomförs med hjälp av observationer, enkäter, intervjuer samt en mindre litteraturstudie. Resultatet redovisas både för förstudien där miljödeklarationens utformning beskrivs samt för fallstudien där resultatet av produktutvecklingen beskrivs. Miljödeklarationen består av fyra dokument, en mall för ifyllande av deklaration, en instruktion för ifyllande av deklaration, underlag för ifyllande av deklaration samt ett exempel på en ifylld deklaration. Den utvecklade produkten består av moduler i storleken 800x400x400mm som kopplas samman med hjälp av kopplingsbeslag. Till modulerna finns dörrar och handtag, hyllor och avdelare, sockel samt tillbehör för småförvaring. Modulerna kan placeras i sex olika lägen i förhållande till varandra samt möbleras om vid behov. De kan även placeras både fristående samt mot vägg. Resultatet av fallstudien visar att miljödeklarationen med fördel kan användas som produktutvecklingsverktyg för utvärdering och urval. De utprovningar som genomförs tyder även på att miljödeklarationen är lämplig att använda som produktinformation. Miljödeklarationen bör dock uppdateras kontinuerligt för att säkerställa informationens riktighet, den bör även utökas för att kunna tillämpas på fler produkter. Den framtagna möbeln bör testas gällande hållfasthet och stabilitet enligt Svensk standard.

Kiel, Universiẗat, Diss., 2008.

Magister Legum - LLM / The culture of corruption is rooted deeply in Kenya. It may be described as an incurable infectious disease.1 Kenya has been ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. For the last three years, Kenya has scored less than 27 percent in the Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International. Corruption persists mainly because those in public office benefit from it and the existing institutions lack both the will and capacity to stop it. It persists despite the legislation, institutions and measures that have been put in place to fight it.3 The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission is the main institution mandated to combat corruption in Kenya. The primary anti-corruption laws are the Public Officer Ethics Act No 4 of 2003, the Leadership and Integrity Act No 18 of 2014, the Public Officer Ethics (Management, Verification and Access to Financial Declaration) Regulations of 2011 and the Kenyan Constitution of 2010. One of the key anti-corruption measures is the system of wealth declarations by public officials established by the Public Officer Ethics Act (POEA). The POEA did not have an easy passage into law. When it was introduced in 2002, Kenya was governed by the Kenya African National Union (KANU), led by President Moi. The regime was characterised by autocratic rule, high levels of politically sanctioned corruption, rapid economic decline and massive accumulation of wealth for the politically connected.4 Unsurprisingly, President Moi did not assent to the enactment of the POEA. The National Rainbow Coalition (NARC) came into power in 2003 and re-commenced the process to pass the POEA into law. This was done with a view to curbing corruption and bolstering donor confidence.5 Regrettably, the NARC administration quickly replicated the corrupt practices of its predecessor, despite being elected on a platform of zero tolerance towards corruption. The new administration, which had promised war on corruption, instead was embracing corruption and denying citizens constitutional reforms.