Swedish political parties are characterized by their markedly different support across geographical space. In most cases, the sources of these regional variations date back to the time of the founding of the parties. Moreover, the regional strongholds and the areas of weak support for the parties have survived major societal changes such as the transition from the agrarian to the industrial society, emigration, and urbanization. Why is it that a certain area evolves a political tradition that sets it apart from neighboring areas? This study addresses itself to this and similar topics with empirical emphasis on the Swedish Social Democratic Party (the SAP).The study is based on the conviction that the regional imbalance in the SAP vote originates in the interaction/competition between various social and political movements in the local environment. The initial model used to explain these imbalances comprises three different factors that influence the party's vote: the socio-economic structure, the local organizational environment and the effect of local party organizational efforts.In order to test the importance of these factors three different areas were selected; one strong, one weak, and one unstable in terms of the Social Democratic vote.The findings show that no single factor alone accounts for the variance in the regional support of the SAP. Rather, what is decisive are the interactions within the structural and social properties of a context.By way of conclusion, this study lends support to the following conclusions of the prospects for the SAP to mobilize the electorate: to establish itself in the local setting the party needs an organizational culture, a local party organization and the absence of strong local opinion against the party's activities and organizational efforts. The party also seems to be favored by a high level of political mobilization (participation), whereas there is nothing to suggest that the SAP's prospects of becoming successful are hampered by competition from the left-wing parties. / digitalisering@umu

Die Arbeit untersucht die Stellungnahmen der NPD-Fraktion im Sächsischen Landtag auf rechtsextremistische Inhalte. Dafür werden die entsprechenden Abschnitte der Plenarprotokolle aus dem ersten Teil der 4. Legislaturperiode (Oktober 2004 bis Juli 2006) mittels einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse untersucht.

Texte remanié de: Th. Ph. D.--Rutgers university. / Certaines parties de cet ouvrage ont été précédemment publ. dans : "Dual actions, one for each race" : the campaign against the Dixiecrats in South Carolina, In International social science review, n°72 (spring 1997), pp. 14-25 ; "The slowest state, the most backward community" : racial violence in South Carolina and federal civil rights legislation, In South Carolina historical magazine, n°98 (April 1997), pp. 177-210. Bibliogr. p. 285-301. Index.

A COMPARATIVE APPROACH TO NATIONAL PROTECTION LAW (1940-1956) Erdemir, &Ouml / mer M.A, Department of History Supervisor: Prof.Dr. Se&ccedil / il Karal Akg&uuml / n December 2004, 130 pages This thesis introduces a comparative history of National Protection Law of 1940 and 1956. It analyzes the two applications of the law, first, by the Republican People&rsquo / s Party governments during World War II, and second, by the Democratic Party Government during the years between 1956 and 1960 in view of the general economic policies followed during both periods. It argues, in reference to the ideological struggle over Turkish economic development during the twentieth century, that the enactments and applications of the first and second National Protection Law address the authoritarian characteristics of both the Republican People&rsquo / s Party and the Democratic Party. It further argues, the enactment and application of National Protection Law by the Democratic Party government contradicted with the party&rsquo / s economic principles whereas the Republican governments had already been on the interventionist path that they inherited from the previous decade of etatism. In addition, the thesis reveals that the first National Protection Law was more widely applied than the second. In both cases, the application of National Protection Law failed to solve economic problems and aroused a public discontent which brought about political losses for its executors.

The aim of this paper is to study and outline the factors governing political leadership at the party leader level, and to conclude to what extent a party leader rules and to what extent the party leadership is contextually determined. The theories used are based on Elgie's interactionistic study of political leadership and Stewart's organisational model of leadership as well as political culture. Thus, the questions raised are if the leader leads or if the leader follows; if the leadership environment is formed by the leader or if it is, merely, implemented on the leader; and what a model of the political leadership consist of? To answer these questions a text analysis comparing Sahlin’s speeches to the party’s political programme is used as well as in-depth interviews with members of the Board of Party. The conclusion shows that the leadership is contextually framed, but the leader is free to implement his or her ambitions within that frame as long as it is coherent to the party line.

Submitted by Maria Dulce (mdulce@ndc.uff.br) on 2014-02-19T20:52:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Pinheiro, Pedro-Disser-2013.pdf: 1494000 bytes, checksum: 4ace873d951330464bcf5d136a1d6a74 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-02-19T20:52:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Pinheiro, Pedro-Disser-2013.pdf: 1494000 bytes, checksum: 4ace873d951330464bcf5d136a1d6a74 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013 / Este trabalho procura dar conta da ascensão de Jimmy Carter dentro do Partido Democrata, no caminho percorrido por ele até chegar à presidência dos EUA. Não se trata, contudo, de uma biografia; o trabalho procura inserir a trajetória pessoal de Carter no contexto maior das transformações políticas, sociais e econômicas pelas quais passavam os EUA na década de 70. Para tanto, concebemos uma tríade de atores sociais, composta por militantes profissionais do partido, integrantes de movimentos sociais e funcionários tecnocratas da área econômica. Nosso objetivo é observar pontos de interação e atritos entre esses agentes, dentro e fora do governo, de modo a compreender a formação de uma cultura política específica do Partido Democrata, cuja origem está no seu processo de nacionalização e unificação. Procuramos ainda relacionar a crise de governabilidade enfrentada por Carter durante seu mandato com as estratégias legislativas do governo, as condicionantes econômicas e políticas do período, e a percepção do governo e da liderança pessoal de Carter por parte da opinião pública. / This study is an attempt to understand the rise pf Jimmy Carter inside the Democratic Party, on his way to the presidency of the United States. It isn’t a biography, however, this work tries to frame Carter’s personal path inside the larger context of the political, social and economic changes of United States during the 70’s. For this purpose, we conceived a triad of social actors, composed by professional politicians of the party, members of social movements and technocrats of the economic area. Our goal is to observe points of interaction and conflicts among these agents, inside and outside the government, in order to understand the building of a political culture that is specific of the Democratic Party, whose origin is related to its process of nationalization and unification. We try also to relate the crisis of governability faced by Carter during his term with the legislative strategies of the administration, the economic and political constraints of the period, and the perception of the government and of Carter’s personal leadership by the public opinion.

The overarching aim of this essay is to understand why gender equality policy proposals sometimes fail to be adopted even in very favorable circumstances. The paper searches to do so by examining the political debate and the process that lead to the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s decision in 2014 to not adopt a law against gender discrimination in commercial in Sweden, despite their longstanding arguments to impose such a ban. The case is considered being a “failed case”, that is, a situation where gender policy adoption failed. Drawing on feminist political theory and frame analysis the study examines the arguments made by proponents and opponents in the debate. The study finds that the Liberal People’s Party possibly might have managed to pursue the Social Democratic Party to switch position by reframing the issue regarding gender discrimination in commercial. The study also observes that freedom of speech can be seen as a competing and higher valued interest to gender equality. Furthermore, the paper demonstrate that Sweden generally have been reluctant to reach gender equality through harder measures, which additionally can be seen as an explanation to the failure of the proposal.

This study focuses upon the adaptation of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Moderate Party towards the European Union. Adaptation is explored by examining attitudes the political parties have on different issues related to the EU. In other words it is assumed that adaptation is dependent on attitudes, amongst other things, and the attitudes are examined by studying officially expressed opinions by the parties in party programmes and in parliamentary protocols. By expanding the study to three years possible alterations in the attitudes can be detected and something can be said on the level of adaptation the parties show towards the EU in each research question. The questions are (1) Should Sweden take an active part in developing the European integration process?, (2) Is it believed that participation in international collaboration provides output benefits that the nation state no longer can provide?, (3) Is pooling of sovereignty problematic?, (4) Is military non-alignment important for Sweden? and (5) Is it important that Sweden participates in a common European security policy? The three years of research are 1995, 2006 and the first half of 2010. Two of the questions are developed by utilising the fusion perspective, that is a part of the fusion approach, which is also the theoretical framework of this study. The findings of this study show that both the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party experience attitudinal alterations in almost all the questions investigated. This causes some shifts in their level of adaption towards the European Union. Furthermore the results show that the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are adapted towards the Union in most of the years researched.

Denna uppsats analyserar två tal av Sveriges statsminister Stefan Löfven; det ena från Socialdemokraternas partikongress 2015 och det andra från Almedalen samma år. Syftet är att ge en inblick i hur visioner för framtiden uttrycks av en samtida högt uppsatt politiker och att undersöka om det finns några skillnader i hur dessa visioner uttrycks beroende på om talaren i första hand vänder sig till sitt eget parti eller till en bredare opinion. Uppsatsen lyfter fram tre olika aspekter av politiska visioner (praktiska, utopiska och imaginära) och analyserar talen med fokus på dessa. Detta kombineras med en retorisk situationsanalys som syftar till att belysa och förklara skillnader i hur visionerna uttrycks i de två talen. Resultatet visar att de visioner som Löfven uttrycker i båda talen lägger ett större fokus på att lösa omedelbara praktiska problem än att bygga ett framtida samhälle. Det framkommer även att talet från partikongressen mer tydligt kopplar visionerna till socialdemokratin som ideologi än vad talet i Almedalen gör. / This thesis analyses two speeches by the Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven; one from the Swedish Social Dmocratic Party's congress in 2015 and the other from Almedalen week the same year. The purpose is to provide insight into how visions for the future are expressed by a contemporary high-profile politician and to explore if there are any differences in how these visions are expressed depending on whether the speaker is primarily adressing his own party or a broader public. The thesis features three different aspects of political vision (practical, utopian and imaginary) and anyses the speeches focusing on these. This is combined with an analysis of the rhetorical situations, intended to highlight and explain differences in how the visions are expressed in the two speeches. The results show that the visions expressed by Löfven in both speeches tends to focus more on solving immediate problems than buildning a future society. The thesis also reveals that the speech from the congress connects the expressed visions to social democratic ideology more clearly than the speech from Almedalen Week does.

Although a local policy is a necessary issue for a functioning of a democratic political system, it usually does not stand in the center of common interests. This paper deals with its functioning in Prague 16 where the Civic Democratic Party has won the municipal elections since 1994. The aim of this paper is to find the main factors which led to its winning in the municipal elections in 2014. The main text is divided into three chapters. The first theoretical one concerns with a theory of democracy, civil society and elite theory. The second one describes a creation of a local policy in Prague 16 - namely results of municipal elections since 1994, a way in which local political institutions have been created as well as political parties run for the last municipal elections in 2014. The third chapter deals with an analysis of election results and interviews made with local representatives and councilors.