Integrating into a political democratic regime has not been a simple task for post-communisitc states such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995 marked the end of the catastrophic war that took place in the region, and was the start for the democratic developments that would now fully integrate Bosnia and Herzegovina into a consolidated democratic regime. However, the history after the signing of the agreement has not been as idealistic. Corruption, ethnic limitations and restrictions, disagreement between the various governmental bodies, and the lack of accountability between the political authorities are just some of the factors which have hindered Bosnia and Herzegovina from reaching any major democratic progress for the past years. This essay will examine if Bosnia and Herzegovina can be regarded as a political democratic regime in accordance to Robert Dahl’s eight institutional guarantees. It will also investigate the democratic development that has taken place before and after the elections in 2014.

This final thesis deals with the theoretical prerequisites and preconditions of democracy and the possibilities of its permanent establishing in Egypt. The main goal of the thesis is to answer the research question, if Egypt is prepared for democracy. In this case study, the role and the specific status of the Egyptian army is examinand as well. The first part deals with the theory of favorable conditions for establishing and maintaining of democracy, published by Robert Dahl, and Lipset's theoretical approach to conditions leading to the stability of democratic regimes. The second theoretical part is dedicated to the relationship among the army and democracy and the civilian control over the military. In this part Samuel Huntington's and Nordlinger's theories are used as well as the Lawson, May and Selochan's alternative concept, which is contributed to developing countries. All the theories used in the thesis are applied on the specific political reality of Egypt. Also theories related with the issue of the military and its position within the Egyptian political system are applied in the empirical part.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the level of democracy within the European Union (EU). To do so the following issues were examined: How the EU works and the efforts it has made to improve levels of democracy; and the degree to which the EU fulfils the criteria set by Robert Dahl in his theory of polyarchy. The study is based on a qualitative text analysis. The focus of the analysis is documents released by the EU that can be connected to democracy, and human and fundamental rights. The theory of polyarchy proposed by Robert Dahl and Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of democracy are the principal theories applied. The thesis also includes theories about democracy within the EU prior to this study. The result and conclusion after studying the documents in the light of the theories of Dahl and Schumpeter suggest that the EU could be more democratic than it is at present. The movement towards becoming more democratic is in progress but needs more time. The fundamental criterion, i.e. that citizens should to be able to choose the holders of a particular position, is weak in the EU because there are only general elections to the European Parliament, which is just one of the three main institutions.

This essay seeks to explore to what extent Palestine can be described as a democracy. It uses political theorist Robert A. Dahl's model of Polyarchy, as laid out in his book Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition, as theoretical framework, giving an account of Dahl's eight requirements for democracy, as well as his theoretical scale divided into the two dimensions liberalization and participation which allows one to determine how far a country has come in the process of democratization. A case study of Palestine is then conducted by comparing the polyarchic model with empirical findings, the central source being Freedom House. The conclusion is reached that Palestine is lacking in a number of key requirements for democracy, resulting in the classification of both the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank as being best described as inclusive hegemonies, or near-inclusive hegemonies.

This essay aims to explore the difference in the political system between the Ukrainian regime in the period 2010-2014 and the regime that emerged out of the euromaidan protests in 2014. Through this the essay will determine if there has been any democratical progress between both of the timelines and if any of the periods achieved the status of democracy. Democracy is defined as polyarchy which gives a clear structure to study both periods and compare them to the criteria’s that this type of democracy offers. The areas that will be studied are: Free and Fair Elections, Universal Suffrage, Elected Representatives, the Right to Candidate in Elections, the Right to Organize, Freedom of Speech and Alternative Sources of Information. The essay is a Theory Consuming Case Study with both descriptive questions and a descriptive approach to answer the questions. The framework that is used to analyze the information is of a qualitative nature. This essay concludes that both periods have had large democratic problems. Although the problems for both periods differ, in the first problem there are several events with rigged elections, crime against journalists and restraints of freedom of speech. The second period saw several improvements in several areas but issues with universal suffrage emerged. This caused both periods to not being able to fulfill the criteria’s of polyarchy which, in this study, is the benchmark for a democracy. Instead, both periods achieved the criteria’s for a hybrid regime which in many ways are equivalent of a flawed democracy.

” Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens’ proposals?” The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens’ proposals lead to a broader political influence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens’ proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens’ proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory. A selection of citizens’ proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased. I have also studied statistics from the period between 2008 and 2010 and interviewed four civil servants that work with citizens’ proposals. Two of them work at a superseding level and two of them work at an administration. The result of the study is that citizens’ proposals can lead to a broader political influence and that Karlstad municipal has adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens’ proposals. The regulation is drawn up to make sure the proposals have to be considered by the respective administration boards and the basic data that the politicians have to base their decisions upon is thoroughly enough for them to make a well-founded decision.

This thesis was written with the aim of studyingthe volksdeutsche minority in Danish Sleswick-Holsatia (dan.“Sønderjylland”). The author has been using theories from Robert Dahl (amongother prominent political scientists) regarding minority activities in amajority society to measure inclusion of this minority. The thesis is a casestudy on a macro-political level. The result of this study was that thevolksdeutsche minority is indeed well integrated in the contemporary Danishsociety albeit with a strong German identity. Politically, the volksdeutscheminority is represented by their party, the Schleswigsche Partei,which enjoys a good relation with the Danish administration and is representedin Copenhagen by a secretariat. The phenomenon ofhaving two ethno-cultural identities appears to be an elite phenomenon in thisregion but the author welcomes a sociological study regarding identities in Sleswick-Holsatiaas well as a study concerning the volksdeutsche minority´s economic statusin Denmark.

Uppsatsen undersöker Statens informationsstyrelses fyra sammanställningar av folkberedskapens orts- och länsombuds årliga rapporter 1941-1944. Syftet är att ta reda på mer om vilken roll icke-statliga organisationer hade för roll i det kulturella folkberedskapsarbetet på lokal nivå runt omkring i Sverige under beredskapstiden. Genom kvalitativ textanalys lyfter studien fram vilka kopplingar Folkberedskapen (SIS) hade till icke-statliga organisationer och vilken verksamhet av folkberedskapskaraktär dessa organisationer bedrev. Resultatet visar att de redan etablerade icke-statliga organisationerna hade en mycket omfattande och tämligen autonom roll i arbetet.