The aim of this paper is to try to explain how specific, foreign policy decisions are made, and why one state decides to use violence against another state. A qualitative method is used, and text and documents are analysed. The two theoretical points of departure are central within foreign policy analysis: realism´s theories on external threats and constructivism´s theories on ideas´ policy influence. The empirical case chosen is the US decision to use military violence against Iraq. The paper investigates whether the real threat from Saddam Hussein´s Iraq was the cause of the American military attacks, or whether the ideas of leading politicians in the USA were decisive for the decision to invade the country. The main theoretical assumption is that politicians´ ideas – rather than real, external threats – influence their actions.  The differences between President Clinton´s benevolent Iraq policy and President Bush´s aggressive Iraq policy can be summarized as a result of a combination of a changed external environment and differences in ideas on the use of military violence. The general conclusion is that politicians´ ideas – rather than real, external threats – influence their decision-making on specific foreign policy decisions.

Based on 30 years of work experience in TV and film production, I have made a phenomenological analysis of my perception of meaning in work - how it arises and how it is undermined. The story starts in my experience of early professional film making in the 1980's and describes how a change to work in TV production required the development of a new professional identity.  The text also illustrates how as a female director I have managed my role in a male dominated and structured work environment. Being defined as an exception from the male norm has pushed me towards femininist reflection and the need to redefine my own work role - the generally accepted view having felt uncomfortable.  An analysis of structural change in TV and film production shows how market pressures and ways of thought have increasingly invaded cultural endeavour. Professional spheres of influence are weakened, while developments in the media are characterised by a commercialism which encroaches more and more upon artistic, spiritual and moral values. This attitude, where quality is in retreat, has transformedprogramme makers from creative originators into becoming suppliers of raw material in a factory- like process geared to produce great volume at low cost. The aim of this essay is to show how changes in society and in TV and film making have affected my perception of my work. Structural transformation in the media has circumscribed the scope for creative play as an important source of energy and inspiration in work and it has eroded my feeling that work is personally meaningful.

The aim of this thesis is to analyse and problematize the concept of culture and its changes during the 1960s. By examining articles out of the periodical Ord&Bild 1962-1972, I show how an aesthetically marked concept, closely related to the concept of art, changes into an anthropological perspective where attention is drawn to the social, economical, political and ideological aspects. This change is viewed in relation to the works of three prominent cultural theorists from the 1960s: Raymond Williams, Marshall McLuhan and Herbert Marcuse. The change that the concept of culture undergoes can be illuminated in several ways. Epistemologically questions of art, its objectivity and relation to reality, are replaced by questions of the function of art and of its role as reproducing ideas and norms of a bourgeois society. Economical and social aspects are used as critical factors in discussing the role and conception of culture, a perspective that gives the discussion a political and ideological edge. Another related track of change is that attention is brought to the relationship between culture as norms and values and culture as art, also known as “high culture”. This means that the idea of an universal culture is criticized for its excluding tendencies. By the end of the decade, the concept of culture has lost its universal meaning and is, among other things, used to endorse and emphasize a specific identity. Culture is key concept in a critical discussion about society and is also seen as a way of changing this society. Culture can then be viewed as a “concept of struggle”. The change that the concept of culture goes through is related to changes in the society as a whole, as well as to underlying ideas and visions about the society. The change must not be understood as a consequence of the political escalation during the 1960s, but is to be seen as a development parallel to this radicalization of society.

The objective of this essay is to approach a larger comprehension of the drama of George Bernard Shaw. The essay studies the combination of ideas and aesthetics in the play Mrs Warren’s Profession; how theatrical and mainly literary aesthetics interplay with political ideas and what the consequence of this combination is. The study illustrates that the dramatic method consists of using ideas as effective theatrical tools to move the reader/viewer by thought and not by sentiment. The study also illustrates that a key to understanding Shaw’s drama can be found in the construction of operas and symphonies; musical theoretic constructions are an integrated dramatic technique in Mrs Warren’s Profession. The study shows that it is a play with a political and social purpose; to raise awareness of the mechanisms of prostitution. The play does not use simplifications in terms of good and evil. It questions conventionality, unveils social hypocrisy and attempts to disillusion the reader/viewer. The antithesis between realism and idealism is an important source of dynamics and constitutes one of the principal aesthetical constructions.

This thesis comprises three essays on immigration, innovation, and trade. The first essay utilizes an enhanced gravity model to estimate the effect of lagged immigration waves on Canadian imports and exports, by province. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data on import and export flows to the top 40 countries of origin for immigrants to Canada based upon the composition of the most recent wave of immigrants. The results are consistent with previous studies, where immigrants increased both import and export trade flows. By adding the provincial immigrant wave variable, it was also found that new immigrants affect imports almost immediately, whereas for exports, the immigrant effect is not significant for at least 5 years and may take as long as 20 years to reach full impact.<p>The second essay utilizes an enhanced gravity model to estimate the effect of innovative capability on Canadian provincial exports to Canadas top 60 importing countries. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data on export flows to Canadas top 60 importing countries. The results are supportive of a provinces innovative capability leading to increased exports, where innovative capacity is measured by international patents, scientific journal articles, and R&D expenditures. For example, in terms of innovative capacity as measured by international (U.S.) patents, provinces with higher levels of international patents had higher levels of total exports, where this effect was greater for exports to developing versus developed countries. Furthermore, provincial R&D expenditures as well as the number of provincial scientific publications (in addition to provincial international patents) were found to be significant drivers in increasing the amount of provincial hi-tech exports to developed countries.<p>The third essay utilizes an augmented national ideas production function to examine skilled immigrants impact on Canadian innovation at the provincial level. Empirically, this model was tested using Canadian data by province on innovation flow over an 11 year time period, where innovation flow is defined in terms of international (U.S.) patents. It was found that skilled immigrants, who are proficient in either English or French, have a significant and positive impact on innovation flow in their home province. Further, in examining skilled immigrants by source region, it was found that skilled immigrants from developed countries have the greatest impact on their home provinces innovation flow. This is true of North American/European skilled immigrants for all skill-level categories including language proficiency, education, and immigrant class. For immigrants from developing countries, only highly educated Eastern Europeans and Low Income Asians classified as Independent Workers are both significant and positively related to their home provinces innovation flow.

This thesis aims to explore heterodox ideological currents that developed in the Cultural Revolution, focusing on the background and writings of the “August 5” activists and the Li Yizhe group in Guangzhou. While the Cultural Revolution produced catastrophic consequences in many regards, this thesis intends to show that there are still ways in which young participants exercised their independent thinking and developed novel political ideas that significantly diverged from the official ideology. Beginning with an overview of the development of the Cultural Revolution in Guangzhou, I study the analyses of the “August 5” activists and the Li Yizhe group as well as examine how their heterodox views about China’s social and political system were inspired by their participation in the movement.

This thesis aims to explore heterodox ideological currents that developed in the Cultural Revolution, focusing on the background and writings of the “August 5” activists and the Li Yizhe group in Guangzhou. While the Cultural Revolution produced catastrophic consequences in many regards, this thesis intends to show that there are still ways in which young participants exercised their independent thinking and developed novel political ideas that significantly diverged from the official ideology. Beginning with an overview of the development of the Cultural Revolution in Guangzhou, I study the analyses of the “August 5” activists and the Li Yizhe group as well as examine how their heterodox views about China’s social and political system were inspired by their participation in the movement.

This thesis presents an analysis of Edmund Burke's place in intellectual history by examining his commentary on the French Revolution as well as his role in the Enlightenment itself. In doing so, it brings to bear the previously unexplored ideas of the twentieth-century historian Roy Porter. The thesis proposes that Burke's indictment of French philosophy as the cause of the French Revolution created enduring historiographic connotations between radicalism and the notion of enlightenment. Consequently, British thinkers of the eighteenth-century were invariably dismissed as conservative or reactionary and therefore unworthy to be regarded as enlightened figures. Porter's reconsideration of the British Enlightenment reveals Burke to be a staunch defender of hard-won enlightened values which British society had already long enjoyed.<p>The source material is, for the most part, primary. For Edmund Burke, his correspondence and his Reflections on the Revolution in France. For Roy Porter, his most relevant essays, journal articles and monographs.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka vilka hinder som fanns att få till stånd jämlika möten över- och underklassen under det sena 1800-talet i Stockholm. Ett ytterligare syfte är att granska hur den borgerliga kvinnan respektive arbetarkvinnan konstruerades av sig själv och av varandra. Materialet som granskas är anteckningar från Samkväm för kvinnor ur olika yrkesgrupper och protokoll från Stockholms Allmänna Kvinnoklubb.Metoden som används är hermeneutisk och teorierna som används är den där Simone de Beauvoir beskriver hur den andra konstrueras, samt Karin Johannissons slutsatser om hur arbetarkvinnan närmast ansågs som en annan ras under det sena 1800-talet.Undersökningen visar att det fanns en uppriktig vilja bland de borgerliga kvinnorna att mötas på jämlika villkor. Men de ekonomiska skillnaderna skapade hinder för det, liksom tidens föreställningar om arbeterskan.Hur den borgerliga kvinnan konstrueras av arbeterskorna framträder inte tillräckligt tydligt för att kunna dra några generella slutsatser av, medan hon av ”de sina” betraktas som det självklara subjektet. Arbetarkvinnan ser sig som ett subjekt i Kvinnoklubben, medan hon ser sig som ett objekt i den omgivande världen. För de borgerliga kvinnorna blir hon det objekt genom vilket de själva konstruerar sig som subjektet.

With a background in the 17th century’s English political events, but also the ideological scene of that time, the purpose of this essay is to analyze two concepts, freedom and happiness, in Thomas Hobbes’s political writings. Hobbes is well known for his political works, mostly for Leviathan, where his thoughts about government and religion are exposed. But what does he say about freedom? And what about happiness? The study shows that Hobbes’s political thought is quite original from this aspect too. Freedom and happiness are defined both from an individual and a political perspective. His philosophical system is based on materialism and mechanism, and so is his view on the concepts of freedom and happiness. In the study of the concept of freedom attention is paid to another concept associated in a way with freedom: free will. Both Hobbes’ view on free will and the connection between the two of them are highlighted. The aim is to find a connection between freedom and happiness in Hobbes political philosophy. It is found, but it changes according to the perspective one starts to look at it. The title is a question: You are free, so are you happy? Looking into Hobbes’s political writings an attempt to answer this question is made. One conclusion can be: one can be both free and happy as part of a society.