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In the 10th of April 2010 the Polish Presidential plane crashed outside of Smolensk in today’s Russia. 88 passengers and 6 crewmen died a tragic death, among them the President of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczyński. A national week of sorrow was proclaimed and citizens all over Poland went out on streets and markets to honor the newly deceased President. A few days after the air disaster, different fractions of scout groups placed a three meters high wooden cross outside the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, to indicate a symbolism between the nation Poland and the Catholic Church. The wooden cross lead to a six months long conflict, also named as the “cross incident” between the defenders of the cross and the demonstrators against the cross, who did not wish that the state should be identified with the Catholic Church. This essay seeks in a qualitative and theoretical way, through a review of the historical, political, cultural and religious development from 1772 and forward with help of two theories of nationalism, to understand and explain why the “cross incident” occurred. The analysis shows that dependent on which theory of nationalism is used, there are different explanations to why the demonstrators acted in two different ways during the “cross incident”. Finally, the discussion concludes that deeper theoretical knowledge and explanation can be picked out and inasmuch the two theories differ so distinctly from each other one cannot get a higher value of explanation then the other.

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Through the effective democratization process during the 2004 enlargement the European Union has exercised what many scholars have regarded as ‘normative power’. The biggest enlargement in the history of the EU has extended the borders of the Union towards new neighbourhood of democratically and economically unstable states. Less willing to accept new members and yet willing to export its norms and values in order to secure a stable neighbourhood, the EU launched its European Neighbourhood Policy with the ambition to create well governed ‘ring of friends’. Following the success of the use of positive conditionality during the enlargement, the ENP was created based on the same logic, however, unlike the enlargement policies, the ENP lacks the membership carrot. This thesis analyzes the ability of the EU to promote and diffuse its democratic norms and values through the ENP and to have a ‘normative impact’ beyond its borders. The results of the case study on Armenia show that though the ENP has a strong rhetoric and ambition in promoting normative values, and in spite of the fact it has succeeded in norm and rule transfer, it did not succeed in norm-adoption and implementation by the target states.

The agenda of the multilateral trade negotiations has since the beginning of the creation of GATT in 1947, traditionally been dominated by the industrialised countries' interests. The last decade has, however, shown signs of a possible change in the power relations between developed and developing countries, in favour of the developing countries. The aim of this study is to document and analyse whether the developing countries have managed to increase their bargaining power in the GATT/WTO negotiations, and if this is the case, how this change can be explained. By providing a broad overview of the evolvement of developing countries' bargaining power in the Tokyo round, Uruguay round and the ongoing Doha round, it can be shown that over time, developing countries have strengthened their bargaining power, resulting in their interests being better reflected on the agenda of the multilateral trade negotiations. Possible explanatory factors for this change can in particular be found in developing countries having increased their ability to build sustainable coalitions, and in having enhanced their market shares in world trade. Yet, developing countries' ability to influence the actual substance and practical implementation of their bargained agreements is deficient. / The thesis has also been published in the form of a book (May 2010).Published by: VDM Verlag. ISBN: 978-3639248234.

This thesis studies the implementation of the Asylum procedure directive (2005/85/EC) and the Asylum Qualification Directive (2004/83/EC). The implementation is based on the officials examining asylum applications at the Migration Board in Malmö. Ten officials examining asylum applications have been interviewed. The aim is to see if there are any implementation problems regarding these two directives. This will in turn have an effect on the Europeanization of asylum policy. Implementation theory is used to study factors that have an effect on implementation and the theory of street- level bureaucrats is also used to study their discretion. The result is that the Asylum Qualification Directive had a larger impact on the asylum examinations than the Asylum Procedures Directive. Different forms of status categories are now granted together with residence permit. The implementation of this directive has therefore a positive impact on the Europeanization of the asylum policy in Sweden.   Key words: Implementation, Common European asylum system, EU- directives, Migration Board

Två-statslösning för den Palestinska Myndigheten är en återkommande diskuterad väg bort ifrån konflikten i Mellanöstern. För Palestinas del har den mångåriga politiska och väpnade kampen för existensberättigande varit deras första argument i statsbyggnadsprocessen vilken har kantats av ”sexdagarskrig”, ”Yom-kippur-krig”, ”Al-Aqsa intifada” och stenkastning. Genom en fallstudie där jag har operationaliserat Barry Buzans teori om statsbildning så har jag under sökt dokumenten ”Oslo Agreement” och ”A Performanced-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict”, om statsbildning baserat på dessa är möjlig. Resultatet av undersökningen är att teorin bakom de statsbildande komponenterna har kunnat operationaliseras och genom detta visat att territoriet, den nationella identiteten och palestinska strategiska områden är de mest förekommande statsbildande beståndsdelarna. Generellt citeras dokumenten fortfarande i statsbyggnadsprocessen men förtroendet att bygga staten Palestina på dessa, uppfattar jag vara urholkad. Sökord: ”Palestine State Building”, ”Statebuilding”, ”Statebuilding Buzan”, ”Statsbildning”.

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February through March, 2005, I conducted a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Lao PDR together with a fellow-student. We were interested in a project in Laos called GPAR Luang Prabang, in which Sida, UNDP and the Lao Government are trying to improve the governance system in Laos. Luang Prabang is the province in the northern parts of Laos where the good governance-project were being implemented. The main interest in this study concerns democracy aid in the shape of good governance and local ownership in development aid. Good governance is a highly debated topic in aid-literature, both because of the explosion of good governance projects the last ten or so years and because of the ambiguity that lies in the concept good governance. Different aid-actors give different meanings to good governance. Two definitions stand out: First there is the “narrow” definition that focuses on the economical steering of a country’s resources. The second, or “broad” definition of good governance, focuses on democratic aspects of the concept. Areas like participation, transparency, accountability and rule of law are high-lighted here. Different actors in the aid-society thus have different definitions of the concept. Whether democracy aid works and becomes sustainable relies, according to the literature, on how well the partners in an aid-project can foster local ownership. Ownership means that the recipient is in control of the policy process, from highlighting a problem to implementing the solutions. The starting point in this thesis is the question whether the ambiguity in good governance- definitions constrains ownership in the policy process. Also, in democracy aid there is an interesting paradox: How can a project that aims at changing political power-structures be driven by those who have the most to gain from these structures? My study shows that when the partners in an aid-project are unable to settle for one definition of good governance, ownership is hard to reach. If the partners can not reach an agreement at an early stage in the process, ownership will suffer and sustainability will be hard to reach.February through March, 2005, I conducted a Minor Field Study (MFS) in Lao PDR together with a fellow-student. We were interested in a project in Laos called GPAR Luang Prabang, in which Sida, UNDP and the Lao Government are trying to improve the governance system in Laos. Luang Prabang is the province in the northern parts of Laos where the good governance-project were being implemented.The main interest in this study concerns democracy aid in the shape of good governance and local ownership in development aid. Good governance is a highly debated topic in aid-literature, both because of the explosion of good governance projects the last ten or so years and because of the ambiguity that lies in the concept good governance. Different aid-actors give different meanings to good governance. Two definitions stand out: First there is the “narrow” definition that focuses on the economical steering of a country’s resources. The second, or “broad” definition of good governance, focuses on democratic aspects of the concept. Areas like participation, transparency, accountability and rule of law are high-lighted here. Different actors in the aid-society thus have different definitions of the concept. Whether democracy aid works and becomes sustainable relies, according to the literature, on how well the partners in an aid-project can foster local ownership. Ownership means that the recipient is in control of the policy process, from highlighting a problem to implementing the solutions. The starting point in this thesis is the question whether the ambiguity in good governance- definitions constrains ownership in the policy process. Also, in democracy aid there is an interesting paradox: How can a project that aims at changing political power-structures be driven by those who have the most to gain from these structures? My study shows that when the partners in an aid-project are unable to settle for one definition of good governance, ownership is hard to reach. If the partners can not reach an agreement at an early stage in the process, ownership will suffer and sustainability will be hard to reach.

“National Campaigns for a European Choice” by Annakaisa Suni. Independent work (15credits) in Political Science, Advanced Course, Spring 2010. Supervisor: Sten Berglund. The aim of this study is to describe and compare the European Parliament’s communicationcampaigns in Finland and Sweden before the 2009 European elections. The study aims to answerthe following questions:1. How were the campaigns planned and implemented?2. How did the campaigns adapt to the media’s needs?3. How did structural, environmental and resource factors influence the campaigns? This is a comparative study with two cases, which were chosen using a most similar –design.The material consists of qualitative interviews at European Parliament Information Offices inHelsinki and Stockholm and of campaign documents produced by the European Parliament. The campaigns in Finland and Sweden were both part of a Pan-European institutional campaign.They were both characterised by a high level of professionalisation and also a high level ofmedia adaptation when it comes to timing and format, but not when it comes to content. Onnational level, there were some important differences. In Sweden, the campaign was more clearlyoriented towards distinctive target groups and used less face-to-face-campaigning towards thelarge audience. The political climate in Sweden matched the institutional campaign better than inFinland; the discussion was issue-oriented whereas in Finland the focus was on individualcandidates and on ”what’s best for Finland”.