The purpose of this study is to investigate how Swedish drug policy is problematized. In order to accomplish that this study investigates the directives to what is said to be the most comprehensive investigation in the field of drugs in several decades. Narcotics, like other policy areas, are based on a problematization of identified problems in society. According to the policy, drugs generate a breeding ground for inequalities in the health of the population and consumption therefore needs to be prevented and treated. Furthermore, it is specifically the problematization that establishes and legitimizes the policy's action and decision-making. This study draws upon Bacchi (2017, 3) who questions the use of the concept of problems as objective in alcohol and drug studies and theory, one should rather focus on problematizations. Further, Bacchi (2017, 5) believes that the traditional understanding of politics as a reaction can be replaced by an understanding that politics establishes and constitutes problems with inherent causes and effects. This Bacchi-approach is used in previous studies to, among other things, question deep-rooted assumptions and display how people-categorizations enables subtle disciplinary mechanisms that govern the categorized. The focus of the analysis is on the 10 central points of the directive, and I conclude that politicians emphasizes that narcotics in themselves are the considered factor in the categorization of people. According to the Committee Directive, it can thus be stated that narcotics is still the most central of the problems. An unproblematized phenomenon I identify is this conceptual use of the umbrella concept of narcotics. That is, the umbrella concept generates a binary categorical aggregation and irresponsible representation that controls the subjects through their categorization. Through the dogmatic moral understanding of narcotics as something self-evidently bad, specific types of handling are both limited and forced. It is not necessarily the substances that are the problem, it could also be people's meaningless existence that leads to abuse and overconsumption. Further the users become excluded from the group “normal” and gets retitled in terms of “addicts”, “criminals” and the “sick”. Specifically, the constitution of narcotics as self-evidently bad produces lived effects for the user such as stigma, exclusion, marginalization among other things. In the study I identify two perspectives, one that frames drug use as a health problem and one that frames it as a criminal act. Further I notice that Swedish drug policy is on a balance scale of these perspectives with its feet on each side in the hope of not tipping over. One side generates a policy of high death rates and the other an irreversible moral shift in a more neutral form.

This thesis, titled A for Effort, examines how three organizations that are granted state funding by the Swedish Gender Equality Agency understand the concept of intersectionality. The understandings are put in relation to previous understandings of the concept, for example the feminist debate of its advantages and disadvantages. In addition, the analysis is conducted through discourse theory and Carol Bacchi's WPR-approach that together are applied as a critical eye to how intersectionality is represented in the texts of the organizations. The study finds that while intersectionality is understood as a way to inclusion, the understandings are also constructing divisions.

The natural capital approach (NCA) has increasingly become mainstream in environmental governance. This approach involves highlighting the economic value of the natural environment in order to make better informed decisions. Despite its mainstreaming and growing appeal, critical voices endure. These critiques frame natural capital in the context of global neoliberalisation, primarily focusing on its adverse implications for the Global South. By contrast, this thesis examines the role NCA has in a national, developed, Western setting – where the issues created by global power imbalances and neo-colonialism are less pertinent. The UK is at the forefront of NCA, with its 25 Year Environment Plan outlining its ambition to embed the approach into environmental decision-making. This thesis adopts a poststructural approach in order to examine the underlying assumptions, constructions, and moral framework of the UK’s NCA. It constitutes a policy analysis that employs the tools of the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ approach to three distinct sites of analysis - nature, instrumentation, and justice. Findings point to how NCA rests on a number of contingent assumptions, produces specific problematisations, subjects and objects, and ultimately derives from a presentism ethic.

The aim with this case study was to do an intersectional, critical WPR (What’s the ‘problem’ represented to be) policy analysis of the Swedish governments preparatory work and government bill to achieve a more even distribution of parental leave between parents. In order to analyse the material, I used Carol Bacchi´s critical WPR approach to policy analysis. I critically examined how the preparatory work and government bill, that was later followed by the choice to introduce an additional reserved month for each parent, construct the ‘problem’, what presuppositions underlie the representation of the ‘problem’, what was left silenced and unproblematic and what effects and implications the representation of the ‘problem’ produces. Overall, the analysis showed that the problem is represented to be that the uneven distribution of parental leave is not gender-equal which could have negative effects for women. The underlying assumptions mainly focused on women, their participation in the labour market and other aspects that is connected to traditional gender norms and our doing of gender. Little, or non, attention has been put on intersectionality and therefore, something that is left unproblematic and silenced in the problem representation. The documents mainly talk about men and women, mothers and fathers which show that the preparatory work and the government bill did not adopt a clear intersectional approach and can, therefore, be at risk of being gendering and heteronorming in its effect.

This thesis examines how integration as a category of practice or as an emic concept functions in political discourses. In doing so, this study delimit itself by focusing on the problematization of non-western immigrants in socially vulnerable residential areas in the whitepaper ‘A Denmark Without Parallel Societies – No Ghettos in 2030’ presented by the Danish Government in March 2018. By adopting a theoretical framework of Umut Özkirimli’s take on nationalism, the concept of ‘othering’ and Carol Bacchi’s WPR approach to policy analysis, this paper finds that integration as a category of practice function as a code word for differentiation in identity formation where the ‘othering’ of non-western immigrants and socially vulnerable residential areas confirm a Danish national identity. Thus, this thesis contributes to a framework addressing the discursive construction of a Danish national identity in the societal debate on integration through the analysis of policies.

Trafficking for sexual exploitation is a phenomenon that greatly affects the individual as well as society. The effect is grim for the victims and their families, as sex trafficking violates their basic human rights, can shatter families, and cause severe psychological trauma. Sex trafficking has also negative effects on societies, it can adversely affect the economy, public health, national security, and gender equality. Policies have been implemented in response to sex trafficking, both in Sweden and in Europe. The thesis aims to show how sex trafficking is framed by the Swedish Government and the European Commission, based on the application of framing theory integrated with Bacchi's WPR-approach. The research method used is a qualitative, descriptive, comparative, small-N case study with a qualitative content analysis of textual data. Through this method, 11 different documents provided by the Swedish Government and the European Commission were analyzed. The result of the analysis shows that the documents from the Swedish Government use a more prominent frame of human rights, while for European Commission the most significant was organized crime. When it comes to Bacchi’s WPR-approach, the underlying assumptions behind these frames can be argued to be influenced by the national versus supra-national level and how many actors are involved, as well as ideological and legislative differences. Silences were complicated to find in the European Commission, while in the Swedish Government, sovereignty was not discussed. There could also be seen a difference in trend over time, where the European Commissionshifted more towards ‘human rights’ as recently as 2020-2021, while the Swedish Government was more constant in their frame of ‘human rights’.

This research uses a modified version of Carol Bacchi’s (2016) “What’s theProblem Represented to Be?” approach to conduct a critical discourse analysison the 2016-2020 National Plan for Gender Equality for Greece published bythe Greek General Secretariat for Gender Equality under the auspices of theGreek Ministry of the Interior (MoI, 2018). The aim of this research study is toshow how gender equality is represented by the Greek General Secretariat forGender Equality and which are the implications and allegations throughdifferent problem representations.

This study provides a feminist critical examination of the proposal to add a language and civic knowledge requirement for citizenship acquisition and the ideas of belonging that are constructed within the proposal. The analysis has been made with Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be’-approach to policy analysis, examining what is represented as the ‘problem’ in the proposal, which assumptions and presuppositions that underlie this representation of the ‘problem’, what is silenced or unproblematized in this representation of the problem, an the potential effects that this representation of the problem can have. The analysis shows how the ‘problem’ in the proposal for language and civic knowledge requirements is represented as a ‘lack of knowledge and participation’ that’s been made possible due to a ‘lack of demands’. Further, the representation of the ‘problem’ constituting the ‘solution’ of the proposed requirements is individualized and the expected exclusionary effects of the proposal unproblematized. Finally, I argue that the representations of the ‘problem’ construct ideas of belonging which are predominantly about assessment of eligibility to be allowed entry into the ‘collectivity’ of Swedish citizenship.

Policies are often seen as a response to existing issues, wheras in this study polices are understood as a productive process, that not only addresses a pre-existing problem, but that construct the problem through how it is represented in the policy (Bacchi, Eveline, 2010: 18). Based on this, the study examines how gender inequality is represented in a number of policies and reports from the UN Development Programme, UNDP, published between 2018 and 2021.UNDP is one of the largest entities within the international development world, and its policies has the potential to impact millions of people around the world. By asking what is the problem represented to be? (WPR) it is possible to uncover underlying assumptions on which the understanding that produces the problem of gender inequality, rests. The effects of these assumptions, implicit understandings of a problem, come to determine what is being done about it. Many policies addressing gender inequality attempt to identify how actions can be taken with less negative effect on the targeted group, mainly women, instead of asking how the policies themselves are connected to reproducing the problem (Bacchi et al. 2010: 120).   This study finds that the underlying premises of how gender inequality is represented by UNDP results in proposed actions that risk conflating women and gender, while promoting activities that at large aim to include women into existing structures, rather than being a driver for examining underlying causes of gender inequality.

Integration and immigration policies as a raised as an ‘hot topic’ in many western democracies,mostly due to an increased immigration. This has led to a debate on integration issues and howto integrate new citizens in the western societies.The Swedish government presented an inquiry on the subject of citizenship test in language andcivic skills in 2021 with an uttered aim to ‘increase the status of the citizenship and to promotean inclusive society’. This paper analyses, based on the WPR- approach, this inquiry report inregard to the purpose of the citizenship test and which problem representations that underpinthe inquiry.The inquiry report expresses a problem representation that ‘immigrants have a lack in theSwedish language and in civic skills’ which is seen as a result of ‘lack of effort’ and that it istoo easy to receive a Swedish citizenship. The ‘solution’ to this ‘problem’ is to introduce acitizenship test which tis thought to create incentives to become more ‘included’. The problemrepresentations (re)produce a ‘immigrant’s people category which need to be govern andreenforces a dichotomy of included and excluded in relation to ‘immigrants. At the same timethe scientific support in regard to create motivation for inclusion and integration by a mandatorylanguage and civic tests are contested.