The aim of this thesis is to understand the reasons behind the decision of the United States to stand in opposition to the International Criminal Court. This policy seems to contradict the United States'leading role in international justice and commitment to universal human rights. The opposition to the ICC presents an apparent contradiction between principles and interests, and provokes the question of what role power, identity and principles play in the formation of national interest. The author reviews the concept of national interest in International Relations theory. It is found that only a constructivist identity approach takes account of both power and identity in the formation of national interest. The constructivist identity approach presents the concept of national interest as endogenous to social interaction and linked to identity. National interest is thus not seen as an objective analytical concept from which one can derive and explain rational behavior by rational actors, but as the very phenomenon that we are trying to understand. This theoretical framework is firmly located in an understanding tradition. In the search for an understanding of why the United States’ decision-makers considered opposition to the ICC to be in the national interest of the United States, role theory serves as a method. The empirical part of this thesis consists of analysis of speeches and statements, and of role conceptions found therein. The results of this approach show that the apparent contradiction between principles and interests does not exist. The reason why the behavior examined appears to be contradictory is that the spectator lets his or her own expectations of behavior appropriate for a certain belief or a certain role conception stand as a guide. The only way we can understand the reasons behind a given behavior is by looking at the actors’ view of the problem and what beliefs and role conceptions come into play for the actors when they face a foreign policy issue. The analysis makes it clear that the United States views its behavior as contradictory neither to its principles, nor to its perceived roles. Instead, it is the roles of the United States, the sources of which include both principles and capabilities, that are the reasons behind the policy.

Personalens erfarenheter av missbruk är centralt inom tolvstegsbehandling – en vanlig behandlingsform inom svensk missbruksvård. Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka på vilket sätt personalens erfarenheter av ett eget alkohol- och/eller olika substansmissbruk påverkar deras förståelse för och förmåga att verka i rollen som behandlare. Studien har utformats och analyserats mot bakgrund av de teoretiska begreppen empati respektive rollteori. För att få en djupare förståelse inom det valda området genomfördes sju kvalitativa intervjuer med behandlare som har bakgrund av eget missbruk. Studien genomfördes på fyra olika behandlingshem med koppling till tolvstegsbehandling. Resultatet visar att erfarenheterna kan bidra med en djupare förståelse för klienten och underlätta alliansskapandet. Studien implicerar att det utmärkande med erfarenheter av eget missbruk är möjligheten att fungera som förebild för klienterna, då dessa behandlare kan visa att ett nyktert/drogfritt liv är möjligt och eftersträvansvärt. Distans och självreflekterande förmåga lyfts fram som viktiga aspekter i förhållande till de egna erfarenheterna. Diskussion förs kring förutsättningar för att erfarenheterna ska bidra till adekvat förståelse och bemötande av klienten. / In Sweden the twelve-step program is commonly used in treatment of persons with addiction. A central aspect of the program is the use of staff with own experiences of substance abuse. The aim of this study is to explore and examine the extent to which staffs’ previous experience of addiction influences their understanding and ability to manage their role as an addiction counselors. The study and data analysis was conducted on the basis of empathy and role theory. A qualitative approach was applied to the seven interviews that were conducted amongst addiction counselors; all of whom had own experiences of addiction. Interviews were carried out in four different treatment centers applying the twelve-step program. The results indicate that personal experiences can be of importance for a deepened understanding of clients situation and also in the establishing of alliance. Attributable to the counselors’ own experiences of addiction is an unique ability to function as models for the clients. Their story is proof that life without drugs/alcohol is both achievable and beneficial. In regard to these findings, experiences need to correspond with an ability of distancing and self-reflectiveness. Important aspects relating to counselors own experiences of substance abuse are discussed in regard to their ability to understand and intervene with the client.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att få en ökad förståelse och kunskap för hemtjänstpersonalens upplevelse av mötet med kunderna utifrån aspekterna kvalitet, tid och makt. Vi har genomfört en kvalitativ intervjustudie med sex personer som arbetar inom hemtjänstverksamheten. Studiens resultat har analyserats och tolkats utifrån teorierna socialkonstruktionism och roll­teori samt begreppet relationell makt. Resultaten visar att tiden är central i mötet mellan hem­tjänstpersonal och kunder då den inverkar på när och hur länge insatserna ska utföras. Lyhörd­het och att utgå från kundens behov och önskemål definieras som god omsorgskvalitet medan maktförhållandet växlar mellan hemtjänstpersonal och kund utifrån varje unikt om­sorgs­möte. För att få en ökad förståelse och kunskap för hemtjänstpersonalens upplevelser av mötet med kunderna behöver aspekterna kvalitet, tid och makt belysas och analyseras i en och samma kontext. Resultaten visar att de tre aspekterna samverkar i mötet och analysen med­verkar till att nå en djupare förståelse för hemtjänstpersonalens upplevelser. / The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of home based care giver´s experiences of the encounter with clients from three perspectives: quality, time and power. We conducted a qualitative interview study with six people working in home based care. Our results have been analyzed and interpreted by the theories social construc­tionism and role theory and the concept of relational power. The results of the study demon­strate that time is central for the encounter between home care giver´s and clients affecting both when and how long the care should be performed. Responsiveness and putting the client´s needs in focus are defined as good quality of care, while the power relationship between home care givers and clients changes between each unique encounter. To get a deeper understanding and knowledge of home care givers experiences of the encounter with clients the three aspects: quality, time and power, needs to be highlighted and studied in the same context. The results demonstrate that the three aspects interact in the encounter and analyzing these together creates a deeper understanding of home care giver´s experience of the encounter.

Abstrakt Syftet med den här uppsatsen är att lyfta fram barns tankar om parlamentarisk politik och samhällsfrågor utifrån deras perspektiv. Uppsatsen är av kvalitativ art och vi har använt oss både av fokusgrupp och individuella intervjuer. Vi har inspirerats av tidigare forskning där barn som medborgare och FN:s barnkonvention artikel 12 är i fokus för att öka legitimiteten i vår studie. Uppsatsen har utgått ifrån politisk teori, socialisationsprocessen, genus och gruppstyrda. Vi har fått resultat ur både grupp och individperspektiv som stärker barn som tänkande individer utan rättslig handlingsförmåga. Trots att barn inte talar vuxenspråk har de åsikter om och påverkas av den omvärld de lever i. Den grupp med barn vi har lyssnat på kunde inte mycket om politiska partier, däremot kunde de mycket om fattigdom, ebola och välgörenhet. De hade problem med partiledarnas namn, däremot berättade de för oss hur de upplever skolmiljön och gav förslag till förbättringar i skolan. Ur barnens perspektiv har vi försökt fånga essensen i deras ord. / Abstract The purpose of this paper is to highlight children’s thoughts regarding issues of society and politics. Our paper is qualitative and we´ve used both a focus group and several individual interviews. We were inspired by previous research in which children, as citizens, are in focus. We also used UNCRC article 12 in order to increase the legitimacy of our study. The thesis has been based on political theory, socialization, gender and other-directed. We have received results from groups and individuals perspective that strengthen children as thinking individuals without legal capacity. Although children do not use adult speech, they have opinions and are influenced by the society they live in. The group of children we listened to didn´t know much about political parties, they did, however, know about poverty, Ebola and charity. They had problems naming the leaders of political parties, but could tell us how they perceived the school-environment and suggested improvements while we interviewed them. We´ve tried to capture the essence of the childrens words in their perspective.

Studiens syfte har varit att få kunskap om hemlösa klienters syn på sin boendesituation. Samt att få fördjupad kunskap om klienternas upplevelse av möjlighet till förändring och hur de beskriver att de bemöts och behandlas på Beroendeverksamhetens gruppboenden. En kvalitativ metod har använts för att besvara syftet. Det empiriska materialet består av intervjuer med sju personer som för närvarande bor på ett kommunalt gruppboende. Tolkningsramen har utgjorts av teorier och forskning kring förändringsprocesser och strategier för att motverka hemlöshet. Rollteori har också använts för att ge en djupare förståelse för interaktionen mellan individer och mellan individ och organisation. Resultaten visar att det är svårt att trivas på en institution. Det har mycket att göra med den maktstruktur som präglar en sådan inrättning. I studien framkom att det skapas motståndsstrategier för att värja sig i en sådan situation. Resultatet visar också att motstånd skapas när man inte känner sig delaktig i sin egen förändringsprocess. Det är viktigt för de boende att kunna påverka sin boendesituation. Boende som tycker de får hjälp på boendet anser att de kan använda vistelsen till något positivt. Personalens roll inskränker sig för de boendes del till att vara behjälpliga med praktiska saker, ett slags yttre förändring. Någon tycker att personalen även kan vara ett socialt stöd i en inre mening, att hjälpa de boende med strategier som gör att de kan fortsätta att leva ett drogfritt liv. Studien visar vidare att man både önskar mer av socialt stöd samtidigt som några upplever att man själv är det bästa verktyget i en förändringsprocess. Resultatet visar slutligen att institutionens strikta regler blir en viktig förändringsfaktor i klienternas liv. Kravet på drogfrihet gör att de boende får upp ögonen på ett alternativt sätt att leva. Slutsatsen är att institutionen bidrar till att förmedla känslan av att en förändring är möjlig. / ABSTRACT Title: ”It’s not supposed to be a bloody hangout where you bring people and stuff” A study on how homeless clients feels about living in communal group homes provided to them by the social services. The purpose of this paper has been to gain knowledge about homeless clients view on their housing situation. And also to learn more about how clients perceive the possibility to change and how they feel they are being treated at the social services collective housing facilities. A qualitative approach has been used in order to answer these questions. The empirical material consists of seven interviews with people currently staying at the communal homes mentioned above. The study’s frame of interpretation has consisted of theories and research about changing processes and strategies to counteract homelessness. Role theory has also been used in order to provide a deeper understanding of the interaction between individuals and between individual and organisation. The results in general show that it is hard to feel at home in an institutional setting. This has mainly to do with the unequal power structure that exists in such places. The study shows that under such circumstances oppressed people develop resistance strategies in order to cope. Furthermore the results points to the fact that resistance is more likely to occur when you’re feeling that you have no influence on your own future life situation. It is vital for the residents’ well being to be able to have an active part in their living situation. Those who feel they get adequate help in the institution are most likely to see the stay as a positive experience. The role of the staff is primarily limited to helping out with practical things. This can be seen as a way of helping the residents to adapt to society’s rules. Someone thinks that the staff also can function as a social support that helps them rethink their attitude towards their drug abuse. The results are somewhat ambiguous in that respect. The clients do want more of social support from the staff. At the same time they emphasises that the best agent in a successful changing process is the own self. The results finally show that the strict rules of the institution turn out to play an important role as a changing factor in the lives of the clients. The demand for total abstinence from drugs and alcohol helps in demonstrating for the clients an alternative way to live. The conclusion of this is that the institution contributes in conveying the message that change is in fact possible.

Det är vida känt att psykisk ohälsa är ett aktuellt och ökande problem. Däremot finns det en grupp människor som är starkt knutna till detta fenomen, men som inte uppmärksammas - de anhöriga. Denna kvalitativa och fenomenologiska studie ämnar att skildra hur det är att vara anhörig/informell vårdgivare till någon med psykisk ohälsa, vilka förväntningar de har på sig, samt hur de upplever samhällets stöd. Utifrån teorin om roller och stigma intervjuades tio anhöriga runt om i Sverige för att besvara studiens syfte och frågeställningar. Under analysen uppstod sju teman: upplevelse av vardag, att stötta den närstående, påverkan på den anhörige, roll, eget stöd, omgivningens bemötande och nöjdhet med stöd. Resultatet åskådliggjorde att deras vardag begränsas och att de kunde uppleva oro, skam/skuld, utmattning och bristande aptit. Vidare tar de mycket ansvar och stöttar sina närstående genom samtal och fysisk närvaro. Bemötandet från omgivningen var mestadels positivt, men även negativt. De anhöriga hade också flera självhjälpsstrategier, varav några fick stöd från vänner och/eller sökte hjälp av vården. Det samhälleliga stödet var både bra och dåligt. Slutsatsen är att det är mycket jobbigt att vara anhörig och vården behöver göra mer för dem än vad de gör nu. / It is widely known that mental illness is a current and growing problem. There is however a group of people who are strongly connected to this phenomenon that do not receive enough attention - the relatives. This qualitative and phenomenological study aims to describe what it is like to be a relative/informal caregiver to someone with a mental illness, which expectations they have on them and how they perceive the support from society. Ten relatives from Sweden were interviewed to answer the purpose of the study and the research questions. During the analysis seven themes emerged: experience of the situation, to support the dependant, impact on the relative, role, own support, the treatment from others and satisfaction with the support. The result revealed that the relatives’ every-day life becomes restricted and that they could experience worry, shame/guilt, exhaustion and a loss of appetite. They also take a lot of responsibility and support their dependants through dialogues and being there. The treatment from others is mostly positive but it can also be negative. The relatives also have several self-help strategies, where some get support from friends and/or seeks help from the health care. The social support is both satisfactory and dissatisfactory. The conclusion is that it is very burdensome to be a relative, and that the healthcare should do more for them than they are currently doing.

Situated within a global context of political unease over Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, this thesis challenges views of Russian foreign policy as enigmatic and unpredictable. It examines the relationship between identity politics, conceptions of security, and the foreign policy preferences of the Russian political elite. It shows how particular aspects of Russian identity that are dominant in different international contexts work to structure policy preferences. This contributes to the pursuit of apparently contradictory objectives across these settings, and to inconsistencies between the rhetoric and reality of Russian security policy. Previous studies have looked into the impact of Russian identity on its policy preferences, but most have taken a limited, instrumentalist view of identity as a tool that is mobilised by political elites to further their existing policy preferences. By contrast, this thesis argues that conscious elite mobilisation of identity provides only part of the picture. Visions of Russian identity (and consequently of its international role) are constrained by institutional factors. These include the linked historical development of the Russian military, economy and education/research sectors. Following a discursive understanding of institutions, they also include the limited number of ways in which identity has previously been represented. These factors produce subconscious constraints on the imagining of Russian identity. This limited conceptualisation of Russian identity has become even more specific in the Putin era, due to the political elite’s frequent repetition of one, highly restrictive, narrative of a ‘usable’ history, presented as the factual background to policy discussion. This narrative foregrounds favoured events, associating them with preferred identity themes. Resultant ‘truths’ of Russian identity then provide a framework for foreign policy. Particular elements of this framework dominate Russia’s relationships with different multinational bodies, impacting on the type of policy cooperation pursued. In relations with the EU, focus on Russia’s equal contribution to European civilisation brings normative incompatibilities between the parties to the fore and acts as a barrier to compromise. With contrasting visions of their identities in their shared region, of what security there should look like, and of how it should be achieved, Russia-EU cooperation has been most effective when undertaken in a specific, sectoral manner. Anticipating the ‘West’s’ relative decline in global influence, Russia has gradually downgraded EU relations whilst pursuing a ‘multivector’ foreign policy that emphasises alternative partners. Capitalising on its identity as one of the BRICS rising powers, Russia has been able to pursue a joint challenge to the contemporary structure of the international order, facilitated by members’ shared convictions of the inequities of the existing system, and of their subordinate positions within it. Here, Russia’s identity as a cultural bridge has been emphasised, giving it a unique possibility to negotiate between the old and the new global powers. Most recently, Russia has built upon its identity as a continent-straddling regional leader, and a supposedly natural representative of Eurasia. In developing the Eurasian Union, Russia seeks to use its privileged regional role to ensure continued global relevance during an anticipated, and desired, transition to global multipolarity. This is a new reading of Russian ‘great power’, in which Russia’s multiple international roles are combined to give it the greatest possible level of influence in determining new global structures.

The purpose of this study was to investigate unaccompanied refugee children's perception of the integration process in Sweden. The study is based on qualitative interviews with six young adults who came to Sweden as unaccompanied refugee child. The results have been analyzed through the theories empowerment, system theory and role theory. The main results show that the key to integration primarily is the ability to speak the Swedish language. The language was also the main obstacle for successful integration the study shows. Furthermore, the results show that the asylum process is perceived as difficult and residence permits are a prerequisite for integration. A warm reception and a strong support are of great importance when arriving in Sweden. Moreover, adaptation to norms, rules and Swedish culture became a natural part of the integration process. The social networking is important for significant well-being. Their expectations have been met and they have been successful in their integration process. They have established themselves in a favorable life situation in Swedish society and are optimistic about their future. / Syftet med vår studie var att undersöka ensamkommande flyktingbarns uppfattning om integrationsprocessen i Sverige. Studien är byggd på kvalitativa intervjuer med sex unga vuxna som kom till Sverige som ensamkommande flyktingbarn. Resultatet har analyserats genom teorierna empowerment, systemteori och rollteori. Huvudresultatet visar att nyckeln till integration främst är att kunna det svenska språket. Språket är också det som främst hindrar en lyckad integration. Resultatet visar att asylprocessen upplevs som svår och uppehållstillstånd är en förutsättning för att kunna integreras. Ett varmt mottagande och ett stort stöd är av stor vikt vid ankomsten till Sverige. Anpassning till normer, regler och den svenska kulturen kom att bli en naturlig del i integrationsprocessen. Det sociala nätverket är viktigt för att främja välbefinnandet. Deras förväntningar har uppfyllts och de har lyckats väl med sin integrationsprocess. De har etablerat sig i en gynnsam livssituation i det svenska samhället och ser positivt på sin framtid.

This bachelor’s thesis in Political Science, is essentially a study of contemporary French foreign and security policy ‘roles’. Drawing on a doctoral thesis by Lisbeth Aggestam (2004), it investigates French National Role Conceptions, using Foreign Policy Analysis Role Theory. It thoroughly examines the nature of foreign policy-making and, notably, it explores the notions of foreign policy ‘roles’, ‘identity’ and ‘national role conceptions’. The study encompasses over twenty key foreign and security policy centred allocutions delivered by the present French President, François Hollande, between the years 2012-16. Primarily, it aims at answering whether French National Role Conceptions, as conceived of by Aggestam at the turn of the millennium, are still relevant for the understanding of current French foreign and security policy and action. Aggestam’s French national ‘role-set’ therefore serves as the eminent point of reference and comparison throughout the analysis. In a broader sense, the essay also aims at investigating the ideational basis to contemporary French foreign and security policy roles. More narrowly, a special consideration has been accorded the notion of ‘Europe de la défense’ (Europe of defence), a key idea in modern French foreign and security policy. The principal findings of the analysis show that most of the French National Role Conceptions identified by Aggestam, continue to be relevant. On the ideational level, France’s current self-image is arguably even more intimately suffused by the notion of ‘Europe’. On the foreign and security policy area, this is reflected in the continued French aim of constructing ‘Europe de la défense’, which is central to the general understanding of the French role-set. Lastly, the investigation supports the notion that French foreign and security policy roles are nourished by a ‘realistic idealism’, as advanced by Aggestam.

When debt crisis fully started in the Eurozone, the attention was concentrated not only on states of southern Europe in debt, but also on Germany. If we consider that Germany is the biggest economy in Europe and its policy is tightly connected with EU, the decisions of the German government are important in the process of European integration. The thesis talks about actual role of Germany in today's crisis of the Eurozone. Because of the size of the problem the thesis is concentrated on last three years and it is focused on key events, whit caused the biggest discussion. The goal of the research is to find out which role Germany plays within EU and if it becomes or has already become a regional hegemony. In the analysis was partly used the role theory and also neomramscianism, that works with the hegemony concept. Results of the research shows that Germany becomes more self confident player. Player which today leaves the strategy of restraint and takes the role of a regional leader. The question of hegemony stays open, even though Germany refuses to identify itself with this role.