Titel: Fostran som pedagogiskt projekt. Bilden av ”problembarnet” i statens offentliga utredningar. (The bringing up of pupils as an educational project. The image of ”the problem child” in governmental committees).    This study focuses on the image of the problem child as it appears in two texts (from the 1940s and 1970s) of governmental committees on Public Health (SOU) and the new school law (Ds 2009:25, will be implemented in July 2011). By image is meant that the image of the problem child is constructed for specific purposes rather than being “found” in an objective reality.    The aim is to describe, analyse and compare discourses on “the problem child” as they appear in the texts. The method used is an application of discourse analysis based on a social constructionist approach and the work of Michel Foucault. Among the Foucauldian concepts used are discourse, governmentality, power and subjectification. In the final chapter possibilities and limitations of Foucauldian analysis are discussed. The discourses that influences the image of the problem child, in the different texts, have three major continuities operating, the talk of a school which aim is to not separate the pupils, the use of the term behavioural disorders and finally the pedagogical methods that individualises, differentiates, compares, places in hierarchy as well as shuts out pupils from the classroom. The emphasize of the teachers role to give knowledge to the pupils rather than bringing them up separates Ds 2009:25 from the two SOU-texts where the emphasize is placed on the bringing up of the pupils. Potential effects concerning the problem child because of this change in the pedagogical discourse are discussed.

This thesis is approaching the concept of development in Namibian plans for development, its Vision 2030 and Third National Development Plan. The aim is to analyse discourses of development in the Namibian political context of planning for development. I have done this through the theoretical and methodological framework of Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, CDA. I have identified four contrasting and complementing discourses in the way that the documents talk about development. Two of them, discourse of tradition and discourse of modernity, are connected to meanings of development. The two others, a social equity and justice discourse and a neo-liberal market discourse, are connected to structures of development, which shape how the documents vision development to happen. I have seen that there is a struggle between the discourses in the way they are described as both complementing and conflicting.

This thesis tries to provide a modest contribution to the critical studies on the history of development by exploring Cold War development practices. It questions the role of these practices in constructing a new regime that was conducive to govern the relationship between the West and the Third World after the Second World War. It suggests that development practices were composed of techniques and rationalities that were designed to solve the urgent problem of governing populations without using sheer force and sovereign power tools where these methods were not practical in the context of decolonization and Cold War. For this kind of inquiry, this thesis takes into account power relations embedded in the development practices and, by utilizing Michel Foucault&rsquo / s theories, perceives these practices as an essential way of disseminating biopolitical methods to the Third World. Role of the development discourse in governing populations is analyzed with relation to the notion of governmentality, which refers to modes of thought and the techniques of accomplishing rule in a discourse. In line with this theoretical framework, the first part of this thesis explores three schools of thought -modernization, dependency and world system- in order to explain the ways of producing thought and knowledge pertaining to development and the involvement of power relations in this process. Additionally, analyzing development aid and development planning which were the techniques to institutionalize development practices in the Third World countries and to render them technical that were managed only by experts without muddling with politics constitute the second part of this thesis .

In this study, the emergence of e-government as a &lsquo / governing rationality&rsquo / (i.e. e-governmentalisation) is analyzed from the Foucauldian genealogical perspective. In that sense, the type of governing rationalities, the modes of subjectivities, the strategies of power-knowledge and the practices of normalization/inclusion and exclusion that are linked to the emergence of e-governmentalisation are emphasized. Deleuze&rsquo / s essay on &lsquo / the societies of control&rsquo / is used as a theoretical framework in which the emergence of e-governmentalisation is positioned. Different aspects of the society of control are discussed within different chapters taking into account the material transformations in capitalism, the changing mentalities of the state, changing practices and rationalities of surveillance and the changing rationalities of inclusion and exclusion. Based on these analyzes, it is claimed that e-governmentalisation has two interrelated aspects. On the one hand, it is an &lsquo / ethico-political&rsquo / rationality which tries to transform individuals into active, techno-entrepreneurial subjects which is required for the production and re-production of the neoliberal knowledge-based society. On the other hand, it is a rationality of surveillance which tries to govern individuals through enhanced systems of surveillance such as databases. Throughout the thesis, the context of Turkey in terms of these two aspects of e-governmentalisation is also taken into account in order to make the theoretical discussions more concrete. It is concluded that e-governmentalisation is an intensifying rationality of the state which may have an influence on the identities of the citizens, on the formal citizenship status and on practices of inclusion and exclusion.

The dissertation engages in a critical analysis of the involvement of the Brusselsbased European NGOs in European governance. It conducts a survey on the European Commission&rsquo / s relevant initiatives after the 1990s and interrogates the implications of these initiatives on one of the prominent European NGO network, the Social Platform of European NGOs. The common understanding conceives of these organizations as conducive to democratization of EU governance within the scope of participatory democracy. However, I endeavour to argue that the Commission has had an aim to make use of the civil society discourse for its institutional interests, while intentionally and unintentionally shaping (and reshaping) civic action in Europe. Participatory democracy project, which is promoted by the Commission, can be seen as a deliberate venture of shaping civic action and state-society relationships in Europe. With respect to this goal, it has encouraged the Social Platform to act like its interlocutor vis-&agrave / -vis the NGO community organised both at national and European level. Deriving from the Foucaultian concept of governmentality, I inquiry into the effects of this discourse on the Social Platform, which has been particularly created by the Commission to disperse the participatory democracy and good governance discourse in Europe.

This thesis mainly aims to understand how the realms of &ldquo / the political&rdquo / and &ldquo / nonpolitical&rdquo / are comprehended, defined and differentiated on the practice of volunteerism in civil society. This study is based on an ethnographic research conducted with people who are volunteering in a Non-Governmental Organization in Turkey working in the field of education. The data were collected through in-depth interviews and participant observation by following the volunteers who regularly visit the elementary schools in villages and Yatili Ilk&ouml / gretim B&ouml / lge Okullari (Regional Boarding Elementary Schools) in order to help school children. Volunteers&rsquo / strong emphasis on the construction of volunteer activity and political activity as opposing categories and their strategies and rules conducted for avoiding any political representation, their perception of politics as &ldquo / spoiled&rdquo / and useless and responsibilizing themselves for their target group constituted the grounds of this study. Basing on the data and following the Foucauldian concept of governmentality / it is argued that the idea &ldquo / non-politics&rdquo / is a new type of politics which is experienced in late liberalism. By prioritizing &ldquo / how&rdquo / questions, this study discusses how volunteerism and politics are defined and how individuals feel responsible for the tasks which were previously seen as duties of state.

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The public sector in Sweden has in recent decades undergone a large change due to market and liberalism impact. This change has meant that marketing communication and its concepts have been adopted by administrative authorities. In this thesis, we used governmentality, social constructivism and an interpretive perspective to examine the staff at the County Administrative Board in Kalmar County and their experiences and opinions of the concepts ”customer” and ”trademark”. The study was designed as a case study with qualitative interviews. The study showed that the experiences can be divided into three categories: those that are positive, those who are worried and see risks as well as those who believe the concepts are just empty words. We also discovered that there was a discrepancy between the management's view of the market influenced communication, which was positive and more liberal, and the rest of the staff which emphasized the traditional bureaucratic rhetoric.

This dissertation analyzes the cultural significance of land relations and caste/religious identity to understand political subjectivity in Punjab, Pakistan. The ethnography details the vicissitudes of a peasant land rights movement, Anjuman-e Mazarin Punjab (Punjab Tenants Association) that is struggling to retain land rights on vast agricultural farms controlled by the Pakistan army. The dissertation argues that land struggles should not only be understood in tropes of locality, but also as interconnected processes that attend to global and local changes in governance. To emphasize these connections, the dissertation gives a relational understanding of 'politics of place' that attends to a range of practices from the history of colonial infrastructure projects (the building of canals, roads and model villages) that transformed this agricultural frontier into the heart of British colonial administration. Similarly, the ethnographic chapters relate the history of 'place making' to the present day uncertainty for small tenant sharecroppers who defied the Pakistan Army's attempts to change land relations in the military farms. Within these parameters, this ethnographic study offers a "thick description" of Punjab Tenants Association to analyze the internal shifts in loyalties and alignments during the course of the protest movement by looking at how caste, religious and/or class relations gain or lose significance in the process. My research seeks to counter the predominant understanding of Muslim political subjectivity, which privileges religious beliefs over social practices and regional identity. Another aspect of my work elucidates the symbolic exchange between the infrastructural project of irrigation, railway construction and regional modernity in central Punjab. The network of canals, roads and railways transformed the semi-arid region of Indus Plains and created a unique relationship between the state and rural society in central Punjab. However, this close relationship between rural Punjab and state administration is not void of conflict but rather it indicates a complex sense of attachment and alienation, inclusion and exclusion from the state. / text

Smart acquisition was the change programme introduced at the end of the twentieth century charged with transforming the effectiveness of defence procurement within the United Kingdom. The initiative was rolled-out as a cornerstone of the Blair government’s strategic defence initiative from 1998 onwards and represents, today, the management philosophy, public sector organisational structures and UK industrial strategy for delivering defence equipment. This research seeks to understand the manner and extent of changes to defence procurement derived from the smart acquisition initiative, viewed as a ‘technology’ through which government exercises power. Accordingly, understanding smart acquisition develops and deepens our knowledge of the nature of government itself. I offer, initially, in chapters 1 and 2 an introduction to smart acquisition, its background and historical antecedence. I discuss the methodology employed for interrogating the phenomenon as an auto/ethnographical study of UK defence practices. Chapter 3 details the factors that drove defence reorganisation, whilst chapter 4 derives smart acquisition as rational and benign managerial change. Chapter 5 critiques this perspective by unveiling smart acquisition as a neoliberal construct through which government procures and cements assemblages of regimes of control and socialisation, legitimised through managerial narratives and governmentalist forms. A revised critical analytical model of smart acquisition embracing governmentalist notions is, consequently, provided in chapter 6. Chapter 7 introduces a specific defence procurement project team and describes its transformation strategy and emerging business model. In chapter 8 the project team is superficially revealed as a rational change agent embedding and embracing management reform. Chapter 9 critiques this, presenting the team as a constructed governmentalist regime, an expression of control, socialisation and surrender of agency. Chapter 10 concludes the research by observing that smart acquisition is a complex set of understandings and a multiplicity of forms and discourses.