Synen på negativ miljöpåverkan har stärkt miljölagstiftning under de senaste decennierna i Sverige och internationellt. Människor vill leva bättre och längre liv med högre livskvalité än någonsin och miljöpåverkan kan vara ett stort hinder. I Sverige är miljöbalken försvaret för att förhindra negativ miljöpåverkan och samtidigt stärka en ekonomiskt tillväxt i förhållande till miljön. Där det lagstiftning inom Sverige som beskriver kumulativa effekter och europeisk lagstiftning kräver beskrivning av dessa effekter. Denna studie analyserar hur olika miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar beskriver och hanterar kumulativa effekter.  Den valda metoden är tematisk innehållsanalys för att analysera tre olika miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar med ett teoretiskt ramverk som består av path dependecy och politisk ekologi. Resultatet visar att samtliga dokument enbart indirekt beskriver kumulativa effekter. Kumulativa effekter beskrivs vanligtvis inte i miljökonsekvensbeskrivningarna emellertid finns det flera bilagor som kan hantera kumulativa effekter även det inte är sannolikt. Resultatet visar på att det saknas stora beskrivning och hantering av de kumulativa effekter och andra prioriteringar ligger först till hands på grund av olika orsaker som framför i resultatet, resultatdiskussion och slutligen i slutsatsen.   Nyckelord: Miljökonsekvensbeskrivning, Miljöbedömning, Kumulativa effekter, Path dependency / The view of negative environmental impact has strengthened environmental legislation in recent decades in Sweden and internationally. People want to live better and longer lives with a better quality of life than ever before, but negative environmental impacts can be a major obstacle. In Sweden, the Environmental Code is the defense to reduce negative environmental impacts and at the same time strengthen economic growth in relation to the environment. The Swedish legislation describes cumulative effects and European legislation requires a description of these effects. This study analyzes how different environmental impact statements describe and manage cumulative effects. The chosen method is thematic content analysis to analyze three different environmental impact statements with a theoretical framework consisting of path dependency and political ecology. The result shows that all documents only indirectly describe cumulative effects. While cumulative effects are often not described in the environmental impact statements, however, they could be addressed in the several appendices. However, this is not very likely. The result shows that there is a lack of description and management of the cumulative effects. Other things are prioritized over cumulative effects because of various reasons as presented in the result, result discussion and finally in the conclusion.

Worldwide energy policies are built on three pillars: ‘cost competitiveness’, ‘security of energy supply’, and ‘environmental responsibility.’ This has brought about the integration of renewable energy sources into national systems with the deployment of policy instruments to make renewable energy sources electricity (RES-E) capable of nearly competing on a commercial basis with traditional forms of electricity generation. At the national level within the EU, there has been much experimentation with different policy instruments with varying levels of success. Nevertheless the EU as a whole will not meet its stipulated renewable energy target. This study challenges the theoretical and abstract evaluation presented in the literature about EU wind power delivery systems and has developed an integrative evaluation framework. This evaluation framework is used in this study to present the views of key stakeholders on their experiences with the performance of key policy instruments (feed-in tariff, and renewables obligation) implemented in three EU Member States namely: Germany, The Netherlands, and United Kingdom. It also challenges the EU-wide harmonised renewable energy policy agenda as proposed in Directive 2001/77/EC. The concept of path dependency of the historical institutional approach was adopted in order to explore the diversity of the wind power industry across the three country cases. An indepth semi-structured interview with fifty-five senior wind power policy makers and experts was conducted to explore the historical emergence, the architect, and the outcome of the support and implementation of the policy instruments. Findings showed that the approach to wind power deployment in the three country cases differs significantly and this has affected the pattern of each country’s wind power policy instrument. Also, the role and contribution of the stakeholder groups to the success of the wind power policy instruments differ significantly in each of the country cases. This helps to explain the performance of the different policy instruments adopted. Concerning the harmonisation of EU renewable energy policy instruments which have received much attention in recent times, this study found that harmonisation based on a single policy instrument is not feasible and may ultimately inhibit the growth of the European wind power market. A harmonised system may cause uncertainties amongst willing investors, thereby causing a withdrawal of further investment in the wind power market. If this happens, Europe may also lose its position as the world leader in the wind power market. Furthermore, national histories demonstrates that Member States have different culture, stakeholder groups, political, and business practices that will influence policy instruments and the likelihood of any policy succeeding. Thus, rather than promoting harmonisation and political market for wind power, it is important that Member States adopt and implement, stable, flexible, and transparent policy instruments that enable wind power and other renewable energy sources to emerge, develop, and go through the R&D stage to a point of maturity where they can compete with other energy sources with limited financial support.

Entrepreneurship is often perceived as a crucial component of economic growth and social development. Studies into entrepreneurship inform policy design, thus the diverse understanding of entrepreneurship among scholars can create confusion in policy design. The current state of the field of entrepreneurial research is examined in order to identify the need for a universal definition of entrepreneurship. After a synthesis and analysis of prior research is conducted to identify the various links in perspectives, a new definition and framework is suggested. The resulting framework sees entrepreneurship as an autocatalytic process of creation of meaning and the consequent retention of said meaning in the structure of a new venture. The elements of this framework (autocatalytic process, creation of meaning, and retention in structure) can be assigned varying degrees of importance corresponding to differing perspectives, while simultaneously ensuring the presence of each element. The developed framework can be used to better inform the decisions of scholars and policy makers, due to the uncovering of the complex relationships between society, individuals and firms.

<p>The aim with this study is to evaluate if standardization of sustainable housing is a practical solution to address the objectives/reach the goals of sustainable housing. The point of departure is that eco-labelling of houses is a way to put sustainable housing into practice. The Nordic Swan criteria for small houses and the UK Code for Sustainable Homes are two recently developed schemes for sustainable construction and design. These two labelling systems are chosen as case studies in order to compare and examine the practice of sustainable housing. How can the goals of sustainable housing be met in the form of eco- labelling? What are the benefits and obstacles/limitations for the cases to be effective and sustainable?  What can explain differences between the two cases? And is the function and organisation of the cases best explained by sustainable development ideas or ecological modernization?  It is suggested in the view of path dependency theory that the UK’s and Sweden’s decisions based on their expectations concerning development of the EU flower has made their respective eco-labelling of houses to have different organisational structure. The Code as a sector-specific label has the advantage, compared to the Swan, of being able to change its structure depending on the needs of pressure in the network of government, business and consumers.  The Code has several criteria concerning sustainable living besides criteria concerning environmental construction of the house and can therefore be considered as part of the sustainable development discourse.</p>

In recent years, a number of reforms have been made regarding the provision of care to people experiencing psychiatric disabilities. The aim of these reforms was to enable these people to participate in society and to ”live as others”. This political ambition, as well as research on recovery, stands to a certain extent in contrast to the message conveyed in the media, where the mentally ill/disabled to a great extent are represented as dangerous and incurable. The aim of the thesis is to analyse if, and how a group of people experiencing psychiatric disabilities create a sense of being like others, and to relate the analysis to the historical emergence of the contemporary conception of mental illness/psychiatric disability. This thesis employs the method of interviews. I highlight the informants encounter with the historically based stereotype that defines the persons as unreasonable, irrational and incapable of taking care of themselves. When the informants face the stereotype, they act to reduce the negative consequences. The informants’ actions can be interpreted in terms of approaches and in this perspective the informants appear as strong actors, who, contrary to the stereotype, are capable of take care of themselves. Three approaches are described: expertise, adaptation, and distancing. In situations where the stereotype is not present, the informants can create a feeling of being like anyone else. Their stories show that the feeling of being like others is individual. The development taking place in the field is “path-dependent”, meaning that the initial activity, the differentiation of persons with mental illness and the subsequent events is a development following a pattern which could explain the failure of the good political intentions. It has progressed from closed institutions to an institutionalized care service.

Abstract Whether the public affairs are executed by central or local government in Taiwan is based on the constitution, law and orders. The clauses of constitution were derived from the ¡§Principle of proper separation of competence¡¨, asserted first by Dr. Sun Yet-sen. From these clauses local and central governments in Taiwan should deal with different things which are properly divided according to their nature. But those clauses were not executed because of the unpredicted failure in mainland. For the reasons to initiate and regulate the local-self government institution, many acts and decrees had enacted after 1949, which gradually twisted the meaning of previous clauses that are ought to be obeyed. Besides, the increasing chaos happened recently about the struggle of expenditure in local and central authorities, showed the problems as the result of deviation. This thesis elaborates on the articles of institution which combines the clauses in the constitution and the ultimate aim of local self-government, includes democracy, separation of power in vertical level, and how the local governments are protected by law. This thesis also describes and analyses the whole juristic construction in separating local and central affairs, and, with a new-institutionalist approach, tries to find the key factors which make this institution evolved, changed and disobeyed the principles which they should be fulfilled. With these factors, this thesis finds that the deviation of the institution which is ought to be fulfilled is evolved by the ¡§path¡¨, the way it changed the previous aim or purpose. Consequently, once the ¡§path¡¨ had formatted, the actors of institution-local governments and central governments, will not obey the constitutional clauses and will keep exercising the deviated system of institution about the separation of central and local affairs.

The budget of the European Union has accomplished a significant role for European integration in the history of the Union. However, it has not resulted into anticipated developments compatible with the Union&rsquo / s institutional policy reform process in the last decades. The budget has emerged as a consequence of path dependent developments in its historical progress, which has dragged the European Union to a critical stage. It is rather challenging for the Union now to sustain the current structure of the budget, since it exposes some disadvantages to continue with this structure in an enlarging and deepening Union. In spite of various reform proposals, there is no appropriate theoretical ground for the budgetary politics of the European Union to be channelled through strengthening the link between the Union and European citizens. This thesis attempts to approach the existing problems associated with expenditures and revenues of the current budget from the social constructive policy perspective, in line with the major question of &ldquo / how the budget can be made more socially constructive by utilizing expenditures and revenues?&rdquo / The study has three major objectives. Firstly, it presents a historical evolution of the European Union budget in order to explore path dependent developments inherent to its historical progress. Secondly, it offers a critical analysis on the expenditure and revenue sides of the budget. Thirdly, it introduces a social constructivist policy approach on this subject as an alternative to the most prevalent approach of fiscal federalism.

<p>The essay aims to compare Swedish and Finnish decisions regarding refugee policies by tracing them back to the critical junctures when the policies were established, in order to explain why there are big differences prevalent today. The questions asked involve the motivations of the refugee policies and how they have changed over time.</p><p>The theoretical framework employed is based on historical institutionalism and path dependency. By using a most similar system design and process tracing, material in the form of government declarations and government bills are studied and summed up in two analytical models. The results show that there might be a weak path dependency in the case of Finland. However it is more apparent in the case of Sweden, with frequent statements of a generous refugee policy that is characterised by humanity. The conclusions drawn are that the differences between the refugee policies might be due to the fact that the refugee policies are motivated in different ways in the two countries. Furthermore, Sweden has had an established policy for a long time whereas Finland has only just started developing this program.</p>

abstract: This research examines the experiences and perceptions of immigrant and refugee women social entrepreneurs located within a context of economic instability, as well as the strategies that they develop to cope with such crises and volatility. To conduct this research I used a mixed-method, qualitative approach to data collection, including semi-structured, open-ended interviews and a focus group. I used feminist theory and a grounded theory approach to inform the design of my study; as such I acknowledge the participants as knowledge producers and allow for them to add in questions to the interviews and focus group and to comment on drafts of the written portion of the dissertation. The findings have indicated that these women are surviving the economic crisis by combining different income streams, including social entrepreneurship, traditional jobs and state and non-profit-aid. Moreover, the participants have found that besides monetary value, social entrepreneurship also provides alternative benefits such as personal sovereignty in their work environment, work-life balance and well-being. Also, personal history, and family and community embeddedness contribute to women's decisions to pursue social entrepreneurship. This research contributes to the growing body of research on gender and work and fills the gaps in literature currently existing in social entrepreneurship. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Justice Studies 2015

The subject of this study is the period of independent banking in Cornwall, from the formation of the Miners’ Bank in Truro in 1771 to the absorption of Dingley’s Launceston Bank by the National Provincial in 1922. Undertaken within the perspectives of the `New’ Cornish Studies, it aims to provide an assessment of the objectives, strategies, and operational decision-making of banking institutions in Cornwall. A comprehensive analytical narrative of their development forms the core of the study, building on the existing literature and augmented from a range of fragmentary primary and secondary sources, much of it from family archival papers. The nature of this material, and the general lack of quantitative financial data relating to individual institutions, has made a qualitative sociological approach the most appropriate. With the careers of individual bankers predominant, the narrative is also strongly biographical in content and emphasis. An analytical technique based on thick description has been used to enlarge upon the possibilities contained in the often meagre evidence. Both the historical narrative and the subsequent theoretical analysis are conducted from a standpoint situated within a Cornish bank; established in Geertzian fashion from the author’s own long commercial experience in a traditionally-minded business. This experience is aligned with that of contemporaneous writers on nineteenth-century banking practice. In similar manner, a theoretical standpoint within the contemporaneous sociological thought of Tönnies and Weber has been adopted, as being the most appropriate to the consideration of the forms of organization under investigation. From this standpoint, the analysis is projected forwards into the growing corporatism and branch expansion of the amalgamation era. This is undertaken through a game-theoretic evolutionary assessment of decision processes; and a consideration of the roles of path creation and path dependency in institutional development.