I denna studie undersöks diskursiva mönster i kommunala risk- och sårbarhetsanalyser. Syftet med studien var att problematisera risk- och sårbarhetsanalysens självklara roll inom svensk risk- och krishantering samt bidra med kunskap om hur risker framställs och vilka maktstrukturer som existerar i policydokument. Studien har genomförts med hjälp av What’s the problem represented to be? – ansatsen, vilket är ett diskursanalytiskt ramverk för att studera policydokument. Analysen har genomförts på 21 kommunala risk- och sårbarhetsanalyser från år 2019. I resultatet uppmärksammas och problematiseras följande diskurser; (1) den kalkylerbara och objektiva synen på risk, (2) hur avsaknaden av fantasiplanering begränsar analysen, (3) hur klimatrelaterade risker transformeras till nationella osäkerheter, (4) hur det skyddsvärda subjektet framställs, (5) hur vissa risker omgärdas av politiska ställningstaganden och därmed hur policydokumentet skapar och reproducerar makt och kunskap. Genom att kartlägga diskursiva mönster bidrar studien till ökad kunskap om risk- och sårbarhetsanalyser. Studiens slutsats påvisar att risk- och sårbarhetsanalysens självklara och objektiva ställning bör ifrågasättas och problematiseras ytterligare i framtida forskning. / <p>2022-06-13</p>

This thesis compares political constructions of migrants across different welfare regime types, based on Esping-Andersen’s (1999) Three worlds of welfare capitalism. Previous comparative research into welfare regimes has not included the Social Democratic regime, leaving a gap to further explore and clarify. This paper does so by examining the relationship between welfare regime type, national identity and constructions of migrants in a Social democratic regime and a Liberal one. The central question is: how do different welfare regime types construct migrants in policy debate? To answer this, this study applied a modified version of Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ analytical framework to parliamentary debate in a Social Democratic regime (Sweden) and a Liberal one (the UK) and then compared the results. This approach focused on implicit representations of problems. Results showed that threat construction around migration in both cases conforms to Esping-Andersen’s (1999) regime models, fitting well with institutional theory and welfare chauvinism.

In January of 2022 the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency was established with the overarching aim of countering the spread of misinformation as well as strengthening Sweden’s psychological defence. Despite making several media appearances and launching a public awareness campaign ahead of the 2022 general election, the agency has remained relatively unknown amongst the public. Because of its recent beginnings, scientific inquiry into the agency’s operations is at the time of writing also scarce. This study aims to contribute to fill this knowledge gap by exploring the ways of thinking that underlie the agency’s work. Specifically, the study is interested in the agency’s reasoning regarding the problems that it aims to solve. By applying Carol Bacchi’s poststructural ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) approach on four of the agency’s publications the study analyses implicit problem representations as well as underlying presuppositions and patterns of logic within the agency’s discourse. The analysis finds four recurring problem representations throughout the publications: a lack of knowledge, lack of effective cooperation, insufficient governmental oversight, and an inadequate will to defend the country. Furthermore, one of the study’s main conclusions is that there is a strong logic of security underlying the agency’s reasoning, in which the spread of misinformation is primarily regarded as a threat to state security. It is through this logic that the agency’s commitments and proposed solutions appear as reasonable and legitimate. The study also highlights several silences within the problem representations and discusses alternative ways of thinking about the issue.

Jämställdhet har varit på tapeten sedan 70-talet inom politiken och än idag kämpar kvinnor med att spela på samma arena som män, inte minst i arbetslivet. Statliga myndigheter i Sverige är skyldiga att implementera jämställdhet inom verksamheterna som ska bidra till ett mer jämställt samhälle. Detta ska ske genom handlingsplanen för jämställdhetsintegrering. Men hur framställs egentligen jämställdhet? Studien syftar till att studera problemrepresentationerna av jämställdhet i Umeå universitets handlingsplan för jämställdhetsintegrering. Genom Carol Bacchi’s WPR-analysverktyg som är avsett för att kritiskt granska policydokument har följande frågeställningar varit grundläggande för analysen: Vad är problemet? Vad ligger till grund för den sagda problemrepresentationen? Vad lämnas osagt? Samt vad blir effekten av problemrepresentationen? Inom diskursanalys betraktas inte språk som något objektivt och neutralt, istället anses språk vara en aktiv kraft som formar och konstruerar vår verklighet. Tidigare forskning pekar på att jämställdhet inte är ett statiskt tillstånd utan något som görs inom organisationer. Genom att betrakta jämställdhet som ett görande går det även att undersöka jämställdhet från flera synsätt. Resultatet indikerar att jämställdhet presenteras som ett samhällsproblem och ett kunskapsproblem. Implicita antaganden om kön grundas i traditionella könsroller och stereotyper samt variationen i hur kunskap förstås beroende på fakultet, kan leda till reproduktion av skadliga könsnormer och upprätthållandet av könsskillnader. Den nuvarande dominerande diskursen påverkar även ambitionen hos beslutsfattare när det gäller integrering av jämställdhet, vilket i sin tur påverkar universitetets organisation samt organisering. Att integrera jämställdhet i beslutsprocesser kan således vara avgörande för att uppnå verklig förändring inom akademin.

The domestic and geopolitical disaster of the Vietnam War, and the process that took the United States into such a large-scale and protracted conflict, led Congress to reinforce its checks on executive war powers. The resulting War Powers Resolution (WPR) sought to inject Congress back into the decision-making process, yet no President has ever acknowledged its constitutionality. The initial debates around the WPR revealed four major lines of argument on the balance of war powers; three of those continued to be made over the next 40 years, as Presidents from both political parties deployed U.S. forces abroad, often without Congressional authorization. This study analyzed the prevalence and distribution of those lines of argument in the U.S. Senate over the Republican Administration of President George W. Bush and the Democratic Administration of President Barack Obama. Both administrations were involved in multiple deployments of U.S. forces abroad, and experienced opposition from both parties. The study found that Democrats displayed consistency across both administrations, indicating a preference for institutional loyalty in supporting compliance with the WPR, whereas Republicans tended to support the status quo. In addition, the study found that Senators from both parties acknowledged the rapidly changing nature of warfare as new technologies mostly remove U.S. armed forces from harm's way even as they conduct lethal strikes. What effect this has on Congress's ability and willingness to further check executive war powers remains to be seen, but it is clear that the debate is far from over. / Master of Arts

This study has analysed Sweden's security policy strategy and decision to send military supportto Ukraine in light of the Russian invasion of 2022. By applying a combination of discourseanalysis (WPR) and neorealism, the study has explored the political motivations behind thesedecisions, under both the Andersson and Kristersson administrations. The results show aconsistent line in Sweden's security policy since 2014, where support for Ukraine is seen as animportant contribution to maintaining international law and supporting democracy. The studycritically examines the balance between moral obligations and strategic interests that guideSweden's support for Ukraine, and discusses the implications of this support for Sweden'snational defence capability and long-term financial sustainability. Furthermore, it assesses thebroader impacts of these decisions on the rule-based international order and Sweden's positionwithin it. The findings suggest that Sweden's actions represent a significant reorientation in itssecurity policy, aiming to strengthen both national and European security through solidarityand international cooperation. This reflects a pragmatic approach to the anarchic internationalsystem, where supporting Ukraine not only aligns with Sweden's moral values but also servesstrategic security interests.

The purpose of this essay is to distinguish ideological starting points in the school debate and thereby deepen the knowledge of today's school policy. The starting point of the study is the parliamentary parties' political proposals about the school and their problem representation of the Swedish school. By understanding how the problem in the school is defined by politicians, we can understand the discussion about the school and why there is an agreement about the schoolcrisis but not the solutions. The material that the essay analyzes are two propositions with accompanying motions that were presented during the time period 2020-2023. The method to be used in the essay was developed by the Australian researcher Carol Bacchi and is called What'sthe Problem Represented to be? (2009). Based on Bacchi's WPR model, the parties' problem representations can be distinguished and analyzed. The method has a theoretical starting pointbased on social constructivism. The theoretical point for this essay is therefore a social constructivist understanding. The theoretical framework also consists of a representation of the ideologies of liberalism, socialism and conservatism. The ideological representation is used to identify the ideological starting points in the parties' problem representations. The previous research is presented as a historical overview of Swedish school policy. The previous research functions partly as a background and frame of reference for today's education policy, partly as a tool for analyzing the material. The WPR analysis resulted in the central problems according tothe politicians being represented by review and knowledge problems, segregation problems and freedom of choice problems. The examination and knowledge problem was mainly understood from a liberal perspective, the segregation problem from a socialist perspective and the freedom of choice problem based on liberalism. There were certain tendencies towards conservatism and nationalist conservatism in the suffrage problem. The results of the analysis showed anideological split between the parties. Based on the analysis, the ideological division can be said to influence the parties' problem description of the school. The parties' crisis rhetoric can be understood as a way for the parties to actualize their political proposals which are based on their ideological problem description.

Denna kvalitativa dokumentstudie har som syfte att utifrån ett genusperspektiv undersöka hur flickor respektive pojkar framställs i förvaltningsrättsliga domar gällande beslut om omhändertagande enligt 3 § Lag (SFS 1990:52) med särskilda bestämmelser om vård av unga. Undersökningen sker utifrån rekvisiten missbruk av beroendeframkallande medel och något annat socialt nedbrytande beteende. Studiens empiriska material består av totalt 24 domar i första instans, uppdelat på 12 domar vardera där flickor respektive pojkar är föremål för den rättsliga prövningen. Studien utgår ifrån det socialkonstruktionistiska perspektivet följt av diskursteori och genusteori. Genom att studera nämndens yrkande och förvaltningsrättens skäl för avgörande vid tillämpandet av de utvalda rekvisiterna ger det oss möjlighet att synliggöra om könen framställs könsneutralt. Vid analysen använder vi oss av Carol Lee Bacchis analysverktyg ”What´s the problem representera to be?” (WPR). Analysverktyget består av sex frågor där vi tagit inspiration av fyra av frågorna och sedan anpassat dessa till syftet med vår studie. Frågorna har vi sedan använt och utgått ifrån när vi analyserat vårt empiriska material och skrivit fram vårt resultat. De frågor vi har använt oss av är följande; 1) Hur framställs flickors respektive pojkars beteende som ett problem? 2) Vilka antaganden ligger till grund för problemrepresentationen? 3) Vad lämnas oproblematiskt i problemrepresentationen? 4) Vilka effekter skapas av representationen av problemet? Till dessa frågor har vi genom vårt material tagit fram fyra problemrepresentationer som genomgående varit centrala i de förvaltningsrättsliga domarna. Dessa är; missbruk eller användning av alkohol och droger, bristande insikt i det egna beteendet, vistelse i olämpliga miljöer och avvikande beteende. Studiens resultat synliggör att det finns rättsliga prövningar där förvaltningsrätten inte har förhållit sig könsneutralt. Detta var specifikt framstående där rekvisitet något annat socialt nedbrytande beteende prövades.

This study explored how Swedish comprehensive plans formulated visions about planning for the needs of people and how Swedish urban planners interpret those visions into implementations in detailed development plans. The aim was to examine how visions in comprehensive plans address how to plan for the needs of a diverse society and how visions were translated into implementation by planners in Swedish municipalities. The research questions were: How is planning for people with different needs incorporated in the comprehensive plans and how are the visions in the comprehensive plans implemented by urban planners in the detailed development plans? The background was that Motala municipality, which this study was in collaboration with, expressed difficulties in planning with an intersectional perspective. The focus become on the language used in visions of planning for different needs and how the language usage was interpreted by urban planners. The methods used was a discourse analysis called “what’s the problem represented to be”, WPR, developed by Carol Bacchi. In addition, thematic analysis of interviews with urban planners were conducted. The main results from the WPR analysis showed that comprehensive plans were vague in their description of how to plan for people with different needs and that intersectionality was described but the term was not used. The interviews provided with an explanation of why the formulations are vague in the first place, with flexibility being described as underlining why the visions was vague. Yet, vagueness was expressed as being problematic since it opened the visions for interpretation.

Terrorattentat verkar bli allt vanligare i Europa. I år antogs en ny strategi mot våldsbejakande extremism. Det är den tredje strategin mot våldsbejakande extremism, varav alla har skrivits under de senaste 13 åren. Den här studiens syfte är att undersöka hur två olika regeringar arbetar för att motverka våldsbejakande extremism och att se hur de skiljer sig åt, samt vilka eventuella effekter deras respektive policy mot våldsbejakande extremism kan leda till. Detta görs genom att använda Carol Bacchis poststrukturalistiska What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR)-ansats. Trots en del överlappande åtgärdsförslag så visar studien att de två regeringarnas syn på hur man bör bemöta radikalisering och våldsbejakande extremism skiljer sig åt. Den moderatledda regeringens huvudsakliga fokus är på utökade befogenheter för rättsväsendet och lagstiftande åtgärder, medan den socialdemokratiskt ledda regeringen främst fokuserar på utbildande åtgärder. De mest anmärkningsvärda effekterna av policyerna är subjektifieringseffekten av utlänningar och unga män.