The aim of this study was to examine in which way political actors affected the outcome of democratizations during the Third Wave of Democracy. Due to the variety of cases concerning democratization in the 20th century there have been a lot of different outcomes and explanations regarding the contributing aspects of the transition from authoritarian rule. This study was needed in order to analyze how and if explanations regarding political actors was a critical element in the difference of outcomes. This was done by analyzing two similar cases of democratization, but where the outcome differed. The two cases analyzed were Czechoslovakia and Croatia. The study uses theories and models developed by researchers in the area of democratization in order to analyze the chosen cases, especially a model developed by Samuel P. Huntington (1991). This model serves to explain the difference in outcome and categorizes the political actors in a variety of aspects to determine whether or not a democratization was possible. The analysis of the study shows that the political actors of the two cases differs in the aspect of categorization, but also in the way in which they act during the transition phase. This implies that explanations regarding actors effects on democratization may be important in understanding why the outcomes differ. However, since this study only analyses the most prominent actors in two cases of democratization by categorization of a single theoretical model it is impossible to say that the outcome of this analysis is accurate and that it can be generalised. The uncertainty of the conclusions therefore underlines the importance of further research in the area of democratization and the difference in outcome of the chosen cases.

How could citizens trust a new regime after being oppressed by the previous one? How could citizens forgive their neighbors who yesterday were executioners, used by the previous government, to commit atrocities (Halpern and Weinstein, 2004)? How could people ever feel safe in their own country after being traumatized by civil wars and human rights violations? Is there a political process that could help countries transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one and consolidate that democracy? This thesis argues that reconciliation commissions are the answer to all these questions. It also argues that they could be the middle step between peace and democracy-building. However, there are some necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be satisfied.

How could citizens trust a new regime after being oppressed by the previous one? How could citizens forgive their neighbors who yesterday were executioners, used by the previous government, to commit atrocities (Halpern and Weinstein, 2004)? How could people ever feel safe in their own country after being traumatized by civil wars and human rights violations? Is there a political process that could help countries transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one and consolidate that democracy? This thesis argues that reconciliation commissions are the answer to all these questions. It also argues that they could be the middle step between peace and democracy-building. However, there are some necessary and sufficient conditions that need to be satisfied.

According to The Economist Democracy Index, Tunisia was at 2.79 during 2010 and by the end of 2011 they had climbed up to 5.53. Therefore Tunisia entered a new category, called hybrid regime. This was a step closer to a more democratic regime. Rustow Dankwart, Shain Yossi and Linz J. Juan would say that the interim government and the political actors within it had a significant impact on Tunisias increase in democracy index. Therefore the aim of this study took the shape of a theory consuming case study. The purpose of the study was to analyze the political actors and the interim government importance during the Tunisian democratic transition, with the delimitation to the year 2011. The results firstly showed us the categorization hardliners within the authoritarian coalition in combination with radicals in the oppositional coalition. During the second interim government the categorization changes from hardliners to softliners. During the third, we see a glint of moderates within the opposition. Secondly, the results showed us that there is evidence of an opposition-led, power-sharing and incumbent-led caretaker regime in Tunisia. The study discusses two conclusions about political actors during the transition. Firstly, the importance of radicals within the opposition and secondly the importance of the authoritarian coalition changing from hardliners to softliners, which allowed the country to transition. Within the categorization of the interim government we have come to the conclusion that the opposition-led government played a significant role in the Tunisian transition.

Indigenous peoples as political actors in the Arctic Council is an understudied subject.Indigenous peoples have a unique status as Permanent Participants to the Arctic Council,enabling them to affect the policy-making and decisions made within the Council. There areconcerns, however, to the level of Indigenous peoples’ inclusion. Research shows that theworking relationships between the eight Arctic member states of the Council and thePermanent Participants creates dependency, among other things because the PermanentParticipants rely on funding from the member states. This in turn questions the status of thePermanent Participants, and whether they are included into the Arctic Council as independentpolitical actors. This paper aims to build upon research done by Michaela Louise Coote andMonica Tennberg, researchers whom both have contributed to this field of research.

<p>Uganda and Tanzania are two countries severely affected by HIV/AIDS. Hence, there are a numbers of associations for PLHA there. In "Global transformations. Politics, economics and culture", Held, Mc Greew, Goldblatt and Perrton focuses None Governmental Organizations as important actors in the globalized world of today, with increased opportunities to influence and affect the politics. The aim of this paper is to investigate the opportunities for associations for PLHA in Tanzania and Uganda to affect in the national level of politics. The study wants to elucidate the relation between the state/government/authorities and the civil society/associations/NGO:s.This has been done threw investigations of associations of PLHA in Tanzania and Uganda, their characters, objectives and opportunities to affect the HIV/AIDS politics in each country. I have been trying a hypothesis which have claimed that these organizations has not played a political role, meaning that they have affected the politically decision makings concerning HIV/AIDS. The empirical material has mainly been collected threw questionnaires to the selected organizations. It has not been possible to appoint the hypothesis, neither to reject it. There are some indications pointing on its validity. In an summarized assessment, the Ugandan organizations are more politically than the Tanzanian organizations, but probably not in a way that have affected the parlamentarically decision processes concerning HIV/AIDS, as the hypothesis intended. A opposite dependence has not been possible to eliminate: That the character and focus of the associations for PLHA in Tanzania and Uganda is a result of the countries differences in dealing with the problem of HIV/AIDS.</p>

To this point research on firms’ political behavior has contributed knowledge concerning large firms’ relationships and strategies with political actors and their surrounding environment. Less is known about small firms’ behavior towards political organizations. As a matter of fact, the fields of international marketing, international business and corporate political science have left the political behavior of small firms almost untouched. Therefore, extant literature assumes that small firms due to their resource constraints are passive receivers of political initiatives. About 99 percent of all firms within the European Union are small firms, and it is therefore questioned whether all these firms are passive receivers of political initiatives. The intention with this thesis is to challenge some assumptions regarding how small firms manage their relationships with political actors concerning EU related rules and regulations. Consequently, the study raises the overarching research question; how do small firms manage their political environment? Theoretically, the study takes a network perspective on business political interaction to examine both individual and/or collective political behavior of small firms. It develops a theoretical view constituted of knowledge, commitment and legitimacy. Methodologically, two sequential stages are followed: first an in-depth qualitative case study of three successful cases is presented and second, the in-depth understanding is broadened to a wider population of firms based on a quantitative survey. A central contribution of this thesis is to aid research on the political behavior of small firms. It is found that small firms, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, do possess political resources. They are not passive receivers of political initiatives. Instead, the findings show that small firms are active and can exercise influence. This, however, is shown to be dependent on the firm’s political commitment, political knowledge and competency and business-political legitimacy. It is also shown that small firms mobilize these critical resources not only directly, but also indirectly through various intermediating actors. Besides the theoretical contributions, these conclusions are important not just because of the managerial implications but also, and perhaps more importantly, for the policy implications that can be drawn from the study. Being exploratory and opening up the black box of small firm’s political behavior, the thesis ends with a number of future research directions.

To this point research on firms’ political behavior has contributed knowledge concerning large firms’ relationships and strategies with political actors and their surrounding environment. Less is known about small firms’ behavior towards political organizations. As a matter of fact, the fields of international marketing, international business and corporate political science have left the political behavior of small firms almost untouched. Therefore, extant literature assumes that small firms due to their resource constraints are passive receivers of political initiatives. About 99 percent of all firms within the European Union are small firms, and it is therefore questioned whether all these firms are passive receivers of political initiatives. The intention with this thesis is to challenge some assumptions regarding how small firms manage their relationships with political actors concerning EU related rules and regulations. Consequently, the study raises the overarching research question; how do small firms manage their political environment? Theoretically, the study takes a network perspective on business political interaction to examine both individual and/or collective political behavior of small firms. It develops a theoretical view constituted of knowledge, commitment and legitimacy. Methodologically, two sequential stages are followed: first an in-depth qualitative case study of three successful cases is presented and second, the in-depth understanding is broadened to a wider population of firms based on a quantitative survey. A central contribution of this thesis is to aid research on the political behavior of small firms. It is found that small firms, in contrast to prevailing assumptions, do possess political resources. They are not passive receivers of political initiatives. Instead, the findings show that small firms are active and can exercise influence. This, however, is shown to be dependent on the firm’s political commitment, political knowledge and competency and business-political legitimacy. It is also shown that small firms mobilize these critical resources not only directly, but also indirectly through various intermediating actors. Besides the theoretical contributions, these conclusions are important not just because of the managerial implications but also, and perhaps more importantly, for the policy implications that can be drawn from the study. Being exploratory and opening up the black box of small firm’s political behavior, the thesis ends with a number of future research directions.

In the 1990s when enlargement of Euro-Atlantic organizations was slowly becoming reality, a theory exploring interaction between an organization and its member states gradually resigned from primary perception of the state as a socialized actor (socializee) and this concept was substituted by the notion of political actors. It was the theory of socialization that became more and more important in terms of examining impact of political organizations on political representatives of Member States, their behaviour and possible interaction between them. This recent and dynamic theory was often confronted with obstacles, especially in terms of its theoretical anchoring. Even within the framework of ongoing academic debate, this theory did not obtain clear recognition. Researches examining causal relationship between socialization and subsequent behaviour of politicians come up with various results. The aim of this thesis is to enter into this debate and verify the hypothesis assuming that the decisions of foreign policy actors are influenced by socialization of respective political actor. Verification of the hypothesis was carried out on example of Iraq in 2003 by the means of media coverage and official documents content analysis. Possible socialization of six foreign policy makers was examined on the...

The purpose of this study is to examine the Swedish parliamentary debate on socioeconomicsegregation over two time periods: between 1995-2000 and 2016-2021. Considering thatsocioeconomic segregation has been on the rise in Sweden over the past three decades, thisstudy attempts to analyze how the Swedish parliament has discussed this particular issue.Using frame analysis, this study provides an overview of what frames are prevalent during theparliamentary debate over the course of each period. Essentially, this paper explores howsocioeconomic segregation has been conceptualized, particularly how the problem has beendefined, what the underlying causes are, what remedies are proposed, and what moraljudgments are made by political actors. As parliamentary debates frequently seem to revolvearound a struggle over who should get priority for a particular problem definition, this studyalso takes a further look at the framing strategies used by political actors in parliamentarydebates. As demonstrated in the results, there may have been a change in discourse over timeas political actors have to a greater extent moved away from an emancipatory frame in favorof a broader perspective on the segregation problem with housing policy measures as thecornerstone. In addition to showing which frames were advocated by which actor, analyzingframe construction through language to uncover who wins the hearing for their problempicture, results in a far more extensive and deepened understanding of power, politics andinterests.