The overarching aim of this essay is to understand why gender equality policy proposals sometimes fail to be adopted even in very favorable circumstances. The paper searches to do so by examining the political debate and the process that lead to the Swedish Social Democratic Party’s decision in 2014 to not adopt a law against gender discrimination in commercial in Sweden, despite their longstanding arguments to impose such a ban. The case is considered being a “failed case”, that is, a situation where gender policy adoption failed. Drawing on feminist political theory and frame analysis the study examines the arguments made by proponents and opponents in the debate. The study finds that the Liberal People’s Party possibly might have managed to pursue the Social Democratic Party to switch position by reframing the issue regarding gender discrimination in commercial. The study also observes that freedom of speech can be seen as a competing and higher valued interest to gender equality. Furthermore, the paper demonstrate that Sweden generally have been reluctant to reach gender equality through harder measures, which additionally can be seen as an explanation to the failure of the proposal.

This study focuses upon the adaptation of the Swedish Social Democratic Party and Moderate Party towards the European Union. Adaptation is explored by examining attitudes the political parties have on different issues related to the EU. In other words it is assumed that adaptation is dependent on attitudes, amongst other things, and the attitudes are examined by studying officially expressed opinions by the parties in party programmes and in parliamentary protocols. By expanding the study to three years possible alterations in the attitudes can be detected and something can be said on the level of adaptation the parties show towards the EU in each research question. The questions are (1) Should Sweden take an active part in developing the European integration process?, (2) Is it believed that participation in international collaboration provides output benefits that the nation state no longer can provide?, (3) Is pooling of sovereignty problematic?, (4) Is military non-alignment important for Sweden? and (5) Is it important that Sweden participates in a common European security policy? The three years of research are 1995, 2006 and the first half of 2010. Two of the questions are developed by utilising the fusion perspective, that is a part of the fusion approach, which is also the theoretical framework of this study. The findings of this study show that both the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party experience attitudinal alterations in almost all the questions investigated. This causes some shifts in their level of adaption towards the European Union. Furthermore the results show that the Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party are adapted towards the Union in most of the years researched.

Denna uppsats analyserar två tal av Sveriges statsminister Stefan Löfven; det ena från Socialdemokraternas partikongress 2015 och det andra från Almedalen samma år. Syftet är att ge en inblick i hur visioner för framtiden uttrycks av en samtida högt uppsatt politiker och att undersöka om det finns några skillnader i hur dessa visioner uttrycks beroende på om talaren i första hand vänder sig till sitt eget parti eller till en bredare opinion. Uppsatsen lyfter fram tre olika aspekter av politiska visioner (praktiska, utopiska och imaginära) och analyserar talen med fokus på dessa. Detta kombineras med en retorisk situationsanalys som syftar till att belysa och förklara skillnader i hur visionerna uttrycks i de två talen. Resultatet visar att de visioner som Löfven uttrycker i båda talen lägger ett större fokus på att lösa omedelbara praktiska problem än att bygga ett framtida samhälle. Det framkommer även att talet från partikongressen mer tydligt kopplar visionerna till socialdemokratin som ideologi än vad talet i Almedalen gör. / This thesis analyses two speeches by the Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven; one from the Swedish Social Dmocratic Party's congress in 2015 and the other from Almedalen week the same year. The purpose is to provide insight into how visions for the future are expressed by a contemporary high-profile politician and to explore if there are any differences in how these visions are expressed depending on whether the speaker is primarily adressing his own party or a broader public. The thesis features three different aspects of political vision (practical, utopian and imaginary) and anyses the speeches focusing on these. This is combined with an analysis of the rhetorical situations, intended to highlight and explain differences in how the visions are expressed in the two speeches. The results show that the visions expressed by Löfven in both speeches tends to focus more on solving immediate problems than buildning a future society. The thesis also reveals that the speech from the congress connects the expressed visions to social democratic ideology more clearly than the speech from Almedalen Week does.

The thesis ‚Instruments of Employment Policy by Social Democratic Ministers Jaromír Nečas and Michaela Marksová-Tominová' deals with employment policy and joins recent and historici view on the topic. The thesis focuses on social democratic politician Jaromír Nečas, concerns on his views and the programme of the former Czechoslovak Social Democratic Workers' Party. It also aims on the present employment policy of the minister Michaela Marksová-Tominová and programme of recent ČSSD. The thesis compares instruments and means used to deal with unemployment by this ministers, it shows that both ministers had the same goals but sometimes different instruments: For exemple, public investition works disappeared but recvalification is much more used than efore.

In the first part of this study we describe different ways of view of the definition and analysis of party network in the Europe and the USA. The theoretical part deals also with evolutionary theory of political parties and different definitions of political parties. The practical part of the study focuses on the description of selected organizations that have a demonstrable relationship with the Czech Social Democrats and the few exceptions are surveyed organizations subordinate to them, or are very closely related with this party. This study therefore describes and analyses various organizations in terms of their focus, the number of members or the way of financing, but also in terms of interconnection with the party and among themselves. We mentioned also the unions, whose connection with the CSSD is based on history background. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive description of the surveyed organizations and at least generally assess their personal connections and influence of the direction of the CSSD. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Cette thèse de doctorat se propose d’éclairer les parcours personnels et collectifs de la quarantaine de membres fondateurs du Parti social-démocrate en RDA (SDP puis SPD), au-delà de sa création le 7 octobre 1989, afin de retracer leurs efforts de structuration mais aussi d’élaboration d’un programme social-démocrate proprement est-allemand, tout ce travail partisan qui dépasse la charge révolutionnaire à l’encontre du régime socialiste quarantenaire du SED. Après la chute du Mur, ce parti résolument est-allemand doit s’ouvrir à la question allemande et se confronter au Parti social-démocrate d’Allemagne ouest-allemand qui l’aide tout autant qu’il tente de le récupérer, notamment lorsque le parti est-allemand accède au gouvernement de la RDA en mars 1990. Alors que les deux gouvernements de Berlin et de Bonn préparent l’unification selon la volonté majoritaire, les sociaux-démocrates est-allemands, patriotes, s’affairent à empêcher que leur identité et leur pays ne soient happés par la RFA au niveau national ou par le parti frère de Bonn au niveau partisan. Au-delà de la politique effectivement menée, ce travail s’intéresse donc aux aspirations véhiculées par le parti est-allemand durant son l’année d’existence autonome jusqu’à sa fusion avec le SPD de RFA, le 26 septembre 1990, quelques jours avant la Réunification nationale. / This dissertation analyses the personal and collective background and development of the approximately 40 founding members of the Social democratic Party in the GDR (SDP, then SPD) from October 7th 1989 until the fusion of both German Social democratic parties on September 26th 1990, 8 days before the national Reunification. Beyond the revolutionary act against the East German regime and the SED, this thesis tries to retace the structural and programmatic development of the party and insists on the East-German basis of its ideology. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the SDP has to position itself vis-à-vis the national question and its relations to the West German SPD. The latter helps its new partner but tries to dominate the East German party, especially after it has become part of the East German government after the free national elections on March 18th 1990. Although the majority of the East German population hopes for a prompt reunification as it is promised by the conservative parties in Bonn and Berlin, the SPD tries to avoid a complete rendition of East-German identity and succeeds in maintaining some of its aspects beyond the German Reunification. Nevertheless, the East German social democrats fight for the ratification of the three Treaties by the West German SPD part of which seems reluctant. Throughout their political actions, the East German social democrats seek to maintain their identity which they consider no less valuable than the one that is impersonated by the Federal Republic and the West German SPD. This dissertation tries not only to depict the social democratic policies but to analyze the evolution of objectives within the year of its autonomous existence.

The topic of this diplomma work is how Czechoslovakian social democratic party was described during preelection period in 1946 in newspapers Rude pravo and Svobodne noviny. The text aims to introduce the topic of the way how Czechoslovakian social democratic party (ČSD) is reflected in contemporary press: Svobodne noviny and Rude pravo. The Constituent Assembly ellections at 26. May 1946 were for a long time period the Last elections, which could have been called democratic. The communist party got 40,17% of votes and entered the government for the first time in history. This issue has not been satisfactorily elaborated yet. The thesis is divided into two main parts, the first one being theoretical and the second analytic. First, I describe the general situation in the post-WWII Czechoslovakia and the position of the Social Democracy. In the second part, I provide a characteristic of the analyzed newspapers and discuss the articles in order to verify the hypothesis.

What happens to social democracy when the working class declines? The aim of this study is to examine ideological changes in The Swedish Social Democratic Party, in particular the party’s ideological changes regarding liberty. The material consists of 300 government bills equally divided over the parliamentary sessions of 1974, 1990/91 and 2005/06, in all of which The Social Democratic Party held office. Using the theoretical framework Two Concepts of Liberty, I found that an increasingly amount of bills draws on the idea of negative freedom. However, the result also shows that bills that draws on negative freedom subsequently decreases in favour of bills that draws on positive freedom, suggesting that the ideological changes regarding liberty in The Swedish Social Democracy Party are nonlinear rather than moving straightforward.

This thesis aims to map what arguments are used by the two biggest parties in Swedish politics, The Social Democratic Party and the Moderate Party, when discussing European politics in the European Affairs Committee (EAC) of the Swedish parliament. In order to realise this, frames used by the party representatives in the committee have been analysed. With the typology of Helbling et. al. (2010), a categorisation of four frames is applied, where each frame corresponds with a side of the left-right or the GAL-TAN-dimension. The study is structured by a number of hypotheses constructed based on findings of previous research, comparing both between the parties and changes over time. The results are assessed in relative terms, meaning that the study focuses on the parties’ relative use of frames rather than the absolute. All hypotheses find full or partial support, confirming expectations of previous research made on other European countries. However, some surprising results are found, highlighting new potential research questions for future studies.

Willy Brandt, chancelier de la RFA de 1969 à 1974, a, certes, marqué l’histoire de l’Allemagne d’après-guerre par son Ostpolitik, la politique de détente entre l’Est et l’Ouest et de normalisation des relations entre la République fédérale d’Allemagne (RFA) et le bloc soviétique. Mais, sa carrière politique a connu de nombreuses expériences et des engagements très divers sur le plan international. Willy Brandt, l’Européen convaincu de l’ancrage de la RFA à l’Ouest, est aussi le protagoniste de l’ouverture à l’Est et l’avocat du développement dans le tiers-monde. / Willy Brandt, chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), from 1969 to 1974, has certainly marked Germany’s history post-war period by his Ostpolitik, the Détente’s policy between East and West and the policy of relations’ normalization between the FRG and the Soviet bloc. But his political career has had many experiences and a variety of commitments at international level. Willy Brandt, as an European, who believes in the FRG’s integration into the West, is also the protagonist of the opening to the East and the advocate of the Third World’s development.