There has been a growing interest in applying concepts and strategies of brand management in the political sphere. However, it has been argued that the phenomenon of political brand image has been given little attention. Therefore the purpose of this study is to explore the political brand image of the Sweden Democrats from voters’ perspective. The choice of exploring the Sweden Democrats opposed to other parties is that it has tried to rebrand itself from its previous racist ideologies and from being a single-party issue party. The study is based on different theories about brand image. Three dimensions will be used, brand awareness, perceived brand quality and brand associations, in order to cover the phenomenon political brand image. This study is conducted as a qualitative case study with a realistic approach. The analysis and findings show that participants still have perceptions related to the party’s history and that it still to a large extent is perceived as a single-issue party. However, it has also appeared that the Sweden Democrats to some extent are on the right way to stop being associated with racism. Limitations within this study are, time restriction and lack of knowledge whether participants sympathize with the Sweden Democrats or not. The practical implication is that this study could be of use both of the Sweden Democrats and other parties who seek to explore political brand image. The original value of the study is that it acknowledges the three dimensions when exploring political brand image.

Using a cross-national perspective covering all free and partly free countries, this thesis addresses two questions: What factors are associated with levels of gender representation, ethnic group representation, and ideological representation? And what are the relationships between levels of gender, ethnic group, and ideological representation? Ideological representation regards policy positions in different issue domains, whilst gender and ethnic group representation are concerned with the inclusion of women and ethnic groups in parliament. The representation of ethnic groups is approached in a multivariate cross-national analysis for the first time. Cultural rather than institutional factors seem to be the best predictors for the different levels of gender representation and ethnic group representation. Cultural attitudes are measured with survey questions on attitudes to women as political leaders, and tolerance of marginalized groups in society. The thesis finds that on average quotas for women and ethnic groups are not associated with higher levels of representation, perhaps because of issues regarding how quotas are implemented. Broadly speaking, little effect of the electoral system on any form of representation could be observed. Looking at levels of ideological representation, in line with some recent studies, the thesis suggests that the electoral system is not associated with different levels of ideological representation. I show that this is the case across various policy domains. Furthermore, the thesis finds no evidence for a direct relationship between levels of gender representation and levels of ethnic group representation, but levels of gender representation may be associated with levels of left–right representation. The relationship between different forms of representation might be shaped by the salience of ideological domains and awareness of under-representation of ethnic minority groups. Overall, the thesis argues that cultural attitudes are central to understanding levels of political representation, a factor often neglected in the literature.

The main subject of the dissertation are women - users of addictive substances. The dissertation charts previous studies that are dealing with this specific group, defines specifics of using illegal addictive substances by women, deals with gender issues and presents "drug programs" for women in Czech Republic or Prague. There are four categories in the dissertation: women as users, pregnant users, mothers as users. The major purpose of the dissertation is to find out, which needs belong to female users of addictive substances, how offered services corespond to these needs and what is missing within care system. As a result the dissertation suggests appropriate services for female users so that their needs would be satisfied, which services should we offer so that female users would be more in contact with care facility, how should we eliminate unwanted pregnancy or how could we help female users to have children in their own care. Material for the study were gathered through field work by semistructured interview with female users of illegal addictive substances in Prague - clients of drug services. Another information was acquired through an interview with three employees of drug services interested in the same issue.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology allows for the scanning of RFID-tagged objects and individuals without line-of-sight requirements. Healthcare organizations use RFID to ensure the health and safety of patients and medical personnel and to uncover inefficiencies in operations. The successful implementation of a system incorporating RFID technologies requires acceptance and use of the technology. Nurses are a group of employees who must use RFID in hospitals throughout the United States. However, due to their being tracked by RFID technology, some of these nurses feel like "big brother" is watching them. This predictive study used a theoretical model that assessed the effect of five independent variables, namely, privacy concerns, attitudes, subjective norms, controllability, and self-efficacy, on a dependent variable, nurses' behavioral intention to use RFID. A total of 106 U.S. registered nurses answered a Web-based questionnaire containing previously validated and adapted questions that were answered through a five-point Likert scale. Two statistical methods, linear regression and multiple linear regression, were used to investigate the survey results. The results of the linear regression analysis showed that privacy concerns, attitudes, subjective norms, and self-efficacy were each a significant predictor of nurses' behavioral intention to use RFID. The results of the multiple linear regression analysis showed that all the constructs together accounted for 60% of the variance in nurses' intention to use RFID. Of the five predictors in the model, attitudes provided the largest unique contribution when the other predictors in the model were held constant. Subject norms also provided a unique contribution. The other predictors in the model (privacy concerns, controllability, and self-efficacy) were not statistically significant and did not provide a significant unique contribution to nurses' behavioral intention to use RFID. The outcomes of this study constitute a significant original contribution to the body of knowledge in the area of information systems by enhancing understanding of the factors affecting RFID acceptance among nurses. The results of this research also provide hospitals and medical centers that require their nurses to use RFID technology with information that they can use to address barriers to their nurses' acceptance and use of RFID technology.

Detta är en kvalitativ studie som syftar till att undersöka hur mellanstadielärare, verksamma inom ämnet samhällskunskap, resonerar kring kunskapsområdet samhällsfrågor och mer specifikt elevnära samhällsfrågor. Vidare undersöks lärares uppfattningar av undervisning i elevnärasamhällsfrågor och hur det arbetet kan kopplas till skolans demokratifostransuppdrag. För att undersöka detta har semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts med sju verksamma lärare för att få en förståelse för deras tankar, upplevelser samt erfarenheter kring undervisning i elevnära samhällsfrågor. Studiens resultat visade bland annat att lärarna aktivt arbetar med elevnära samhällsfrågor och att de anser att det är en viktig del av samhällskunskaps-undervisningen. Resultatet antyder också att lärarna tolkar begreppet elevnära med ett bredare perspektiv än geografiskt. Lärarna delade uppfattningen av att eleverna behöver ha kunskap om samhället för att kunna verka i det. Vidare hade de föreställningen att samtal samt diskussioner är betydelsefulla och att de som lärare behöver skapa lärandemiljöer där eleverna lär sig att se olika perspektiv och får uttrycka sina åsikter. Lärarna såg få utmaningar med samhällsfrågor men att det då är upp till lärarna att göra det greppbart för eleverna. De belyser också att intresse och delaktighet vid undervisning med elevnära samhällsfrågor har betydelse för elevernas bildning till demokratiska samhällsmedborgare. / This essay is a qualitative study that aims to report how teachers active in middle school reasons about the subject civics with social issues and also pupil-related social issues. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate the purpose with teaching pupil-related social issues and if this study can be connected to the democratic task of nurturing citizens that teachers have. In order to do this, seven teachers have been interviewed in semi-structured interviews to get their thoughts and experiences on teaching pupils-related social issues. The results of the study showed, among other things, that the teachers are actively working with pupil-related social issues and that it is an important part of social science studies. The result also indicated that the teachers views the pupil-related perspective broader than only geographical. The teachers shared the opinion that the pupils need to have knowledge of society in order to be able to live in it. Additionally, the teachers held the notion that conversations and discussions are important and that the teachers need to create learning environments where the pupils learn to see different perspectives and also are able to express their opinions. The teachers in the study saw few challenges with teaching social issues but that it is up to the teachers to make it understandable for the pupils. They also demonstrate that interest and participation in pupils-related social issues are significant for the pupils´ formation into democratic citizens.

[pt] Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo compreender até que ponto é possível estabelecer nexos e limites entre as expressões da questão social e os problemas ambientais, considerando que as novas demandas sociais e os conflitos em torno da questão urbana relacionadas à preservação ambiental colocam ao mundo um grande desafio de avançar na discussão da cidadania plena e do norteamento das políticas sociais na contramão das propostas do projeto neoliberal. Portanto, o objeto de estudo dessa dissertação centra-se na tentativa de construir o debate sobre o que caracteriza uma política pública socioambiental, não só como categoria teórica, mas analisando pela pesquisa empírica atravpés do Projeto EcoBarreiras, do Governo do Estado do RJ. / [en] This research has the purpose to understand which are the limits and relations between the social problem and the environmental issues, considering that the conflicts around the urban and the city dilemmas are related with the preservation of nature, putting a challenge about the citizenship and social politics that goes to another directions from the capitalism. The object of this dissertation is centered on the construction about the debate of what characterizes a Social-environmental politic, not only as a category, but analyzing the practical meaning by the EcoBarreiras project, from the government of Rio de Janeiro.

[pt] Neste trabalho, estudamos o forte movimento do risco país em momentos de emissões de dívida externa. Nossos resultados indicam que emissões de curto prazo em momentos de alta assimetria informacional reduzem o risco país em pelo menos 12 pontos-base, enquanto que emissões de longo prazo, nestes momentos, aumentam-no em torno de 90 pontos, movimentos que são mais pronunciados nas taxas de longo prazo da estrutura a termo do spread do que nas de curto prazo. Estes resultados, interpretados à luz de modelos que consideram o trade off entre custo de financiamento e risco de refinanciamento, sugerem que os investidores inferem de uma emissão curta uma maior probabilidade de o governo honrar a dívida e, em contraste, de uma emissão de longo prazo um aumento na probabilidade de moratória. Desta forma, concluímos que a maturidade das emissões de dívida revela informação sobre a qualidade da política econômica futura. / [en] In this work, we study the strong movements in country spreads in moments of sovereign debt issues. Our results point that short term bond issues in moments of high informational asymmetry reduce sovereign spreads in 12 basis-points at least, while long-term ones increase spreads in roughly 90 basis-points, movements that are more pronounced in long- term outstanding bonds than in short ones. These results, interpretated in light of models that consider the trade off between financial cost and refinancing risk, suggest that financial markets infer a higher likelihood of default from long term bond issues and a lower from short term ones. Therefore we conclude that sovereign debt issues reveal information about the future quality of the economic policy.

In the 21st century, water scarcity due to pollution, increasing demand and mismanagement has become a global phenomenon of growing concern. Often depicted in media reports, endorsed by global summits - such as the recent \"Rio+20\" Conference in 2012 in Brazil - and campaigned for by NGOs all over the world, freshwater issues play an important role within bigger debates on global environmental issues. Despite a clear increase in the intensity and scope of these issues over the last decades, they are not novel as such and have a history. This Ph.D. thesis analyzes the emergence and evolution of the freshwater topic on the international agenda since the early 1970s, when the first international freshwater-related conferences and conventions took place. In order to explain this genesis and evolution, the freshwater topic is situated within the broader international environmental agenda and is connected with International Relations scholarship on agenda-setting as well as international regimes. Subsequently, the empirical freshwater conventions and conference data is analyzed through these theoretical lenses, showing that the freshwater issue is in fact an umbrella topic which can be further subdivided into smaller water-related topics. The treatment of these sub-topics has led to conventions in two cases (wetlands and international watercourses) which are taken to be regimes in their own right, whereas others have so far remained limited to international conferences and events (sanitation, access to potable water etc.). Rather than seeing these as unconnected, individual regimes and conferences as has been done within contemporary scholarship, it will be argued that these in fact represent sub-regimes and parts of a bigger freshwater regime complex. Moreover, it will be argued that the origins of this regime complex are not due to specific countries´ deliberate aims of constructing international institutional overlap to subsequently explore forum-shopping opportunities to their advantage but, rather, that developments in this issue-area unintentionally resulted in this overlap for functional reasons. / No século 21, a escassez hídrica devido a causas como poluição, crescente demanda e má administração tem se tornado um fenômeno cada vez mais preocupante. Os recursos de água doce possuem um papel importante nos debates mais amplos sobre o meio ambiente, figuram frequentemente nas reportagens da mídia, são endossados nas cúpulas globais - tais como a recente \"Rio+20\" em 2012 no Brasil - e são o foco de campanhas de ONGs no mundo inteiro. Apesar de um crescimento evidente na intensidade e no escopo dessas questões nas últimas décadas, elas não são novas, mas sim integram um processo histórico. Esta tese de doutorado analisa a emergência e evolução do tema da água doce na agenda internacional a partir do início dos anos 1970, quando tiveram lugar as primeiras conferências e convenções relacionadas com essa questão. Com o intuito de explicar esta gênese e evolução, o tema da água doce está situado dentro da agenda ambiental mais ampla e se conecta com a literatura de relações internacionais sobre agenda-setting e regimes internacionais. Subsequentemente, os dados empíricos das convenções e conferências de água são analisados por meio dessas lentes teóricas, o que mostra que a temática hídrica é de fato um tópico guarda-chuva, que pode ser subdivido ainda em temas menores com relação à água. O tratamento desses subtemas tem levado a convenções em dois casos (zonas úmidas e cursos d\'água internacionais), que são percebidos como regimes próprios, quando outros têm ficado limitados até agora a conferências internacionais e meros eventos (saneamento, acesso à água potável etc.). Em vez de ver estes como regimes e conferências individuais e isolados, como tem sido feito na literatura contemporânea, argumentar-se-á que eles de fato representam subregimes e partes de um complexo de regime de água doce mais amplo. Além disso, argumentar-se-á que as origens desse complexo de regime não se devem a objetivos conscientes de certos países com o fim de construir uma sobreposição institucional para subsequentemente explorar oportunidades de fórum-shopping; mas bem os desdobramentos nessa área resultaram nessa sobreposição por razões funcionais, de forma não intencional.

Na cidade de São Paulo a habitação regular e digna para a população de baixa renda é tema complexo. É grande o número de loteamentos irregulares e favelas na cidade. É sabido que morar em condições precárias trazem diversos prejuízos à qualidade de vida e a dignidade das pessoas que habitam nessas condições. Este trabalho busca a reflexão sobre o espaço urbano a partir da comunidade do Jardim Pantanal, considerando necessária a discussão sobre os conflitos por espaço, a ideia de território e de comunidade, movimentos sociais e remoções. Para tal, foi utilizado como caminho metodológico o mapeamento dos atores e interesses identificados no Jardim Pantanal. A ação dos atores apontaram possibilidades de reflexões e diversos esclarecimentos a respeito da própria dinâmica do espaço estudado. É também abordada a situação fundiária do Jardim Pantanal, bem como o processo de luta dos moradores e movimentos sociais e entidades para que a Regularização Fundiária ocorra. A Regularização Fundiária é o procedimento pelo qual se busca tornar lícita a ocupação da terra nos casos em que o acesso àquele bem tenha ocorrido de modo irregular. Os princípios da Regularização Fundiária visam à ampliação do acesso a terra urbanizada pela população de baixa renda, com prioridade para sua permanência na área ocupada, assegurados o nível adequado de habitabilidade e a melhoria das condições de sustentabilidade urbanística, social e ambiental. Para conhecer o Jardim Pantanal é também necessário ter ciência das constantes inundações, enchentes e remoções já ocorridas no bairro e que continuam como possibilidade de acontecer. São apresentados os planos e projetos que visam a intervenção no Jardim Pantanal, tais como: plano de Manejo das Várzeas do rio Tietê, o Parque Várzeas do Tietê e o projeto urbanístico Renova São Paulo. São discutidas as possíveis consequências do processo de implantação de cada projeto. Foi identificado neste trabalho que o Jardim Pantanal apesar de ser conhecido, de modo geral, como um local difícil de viver, perigoso e com altos índices de vulnerabilidade social, possui também diversas potências e fatores positivos que fazem com que os diversos atores, ainda que com interesses diferentes, permaneçam envolvidos na dinâmica deste espaço. Desalento e esperança parecem marcar a história dos moradores e do território do Jardim Pantanal, onde os interesses dos atores envolvidos e as intervenções realizadas mudam, às vezes definitivamente, a trajetória de uma comunidade / In the city of São Paulo the regular and decent housing for low-income population is a complex subject. There are a great number of irregular settlements and slums in the city. As is well known that to live in precarious conditions may bring many losses to the quality of life and to the dignity of those people who have been living in these conditions. This work seeks to make a reflection on the urban space of Jardim Pantanal community, considering the necessary discussion on the conflicts for space, the idea of territory and community, social movements, removals and urban dispossession. For such, it was used as a methodological way the mapping of actors and interests identified in the Jardim Pantanal. The action of the actors pointed out possibilities of reflections and various clarifications regarding on its own dynamics of the studied space. It also addressed the agrarian situation of Jardim Pantanal, as well as the struggle process of the residents and social movements and entities for the Land Regularization works out. The Land Regularization is the procedure by which it seeks to convert lawful occupation of land in cases in which the access of that good has occurred in irregular terms. These principles of Regularization aimed at the increasing access to the urbanized land for the low-income population, priority for their stay in the occupied area, ensuring the adequate level of housing and improvement of urban, social and environmental sustainability. To know the Jardim Pantanal is also necessary to be aware of the constant flooding, floods and removals that have already occurred in the neighborhood and that continue as a possibility to happen. The plans and projects are presented aimed at intervention in the Jardim Pantanal, such as: the Tiete River Floodplains Management Plan, the Tiete Wetlands Park and the urban project Renew São Paulo. The possible consequences of the implementation of each design process have been discussed. It was identified in this work that the Jardim Pantanal, despite being generally known as a difficult place to live, dangerous and with high levels of social vulnerability, also has several potencies and positive factors that make the various actors still that with different interests, remain involved in the dynamics of this space. Discouragement and hope seem to mark the history of the residents and the Jardim Pantanal territory where the interests of stakeholders and interventions change, sometimes permanently, the trajectory of a community

L’instauration de la question prioritaire de constitutionnalité (QPC) conduit à repenser les rapports entre les juridictions suprêmes : Conseil constitutionnel, Cour de cassation et Conseil d’Etat. Elle met aussi en lumière les spécificités de la fonction de juger – et notamment l’exercice, par le juge, de son pouvoir d’interprétation. De fait, en créant un lien direct entre les trois juridictions suprêmes, la QPC brouille les frontières de leurs compétences respectives et les place dans une situation d’interdépendance qui impacte directement l’étendue et l’exercice de leur pouvoir herméneutique. La QPC s’avère donc être le vecteur – c’est-à-dire à la fois le support, et le révélateur – d’une concurrence très vive entre les interprètes. De ce fait, il n’est pas possible de considérer qu’un juge détient le « dernier mot » pour l’attribution d’un sens à la loi ou à la Constitution – ces deux textes étant conjointement et simultanément interprétés par l’ensemble des juges du système. Le contrôle de constitutionnalité a posteriori met ainsi en lumière l’existence d’un processus interprétatif à la fois continu et inachevé. L’étude de ce contentieux permet donc de mieux comprendre le travail herméneutique effectué par le juge – en donnant l’occasion de forger le concept d’interprétation normative. / The introduction of the The Priority Preliminary Ruling on the Issue of Constitutionality (QPC) leads to rethinking the relations between the supreme jurisdictions : Constitutional Council, Court of Cassation and Council of State. It also highlights the specificities of the judging’s function- and in particular the exercise by the judge of his interpretation’s power. In fact, by creating a direct link between the three supreme jurisdictions, the QPC blurs the boundaries of their respective jurisdictions and places them in a situation of interdependence that directly impacts the extent and the exercise of their hermeneutical power. Therefore, the QPC turns out to be the vector - that is to say, both the medium and the developer - of a very lively competition between the performers. Thereby, it is not possible to consider that a judge has the "last word" for the attribution of a meaning to the law or the Constitution - these two texts being jointly and simultaneously interpreted by the whole judges of the system. The QPC thus highlights the existence of an interpretive process that is both ongoing and uncompleted. The study of this litigation so lets understand the hermeneutical work done by the judge - by giving the opportunity to forge the concept of normative interpretation.