This essay is a bachelor’s thesis in the field of International Relations. The purpose is to make visible and analyse how problem representations in policies can reproduce norms, and how this has changed over a limited period of time. The purpose includes the ambition to be able to illustrate deficiencies in the European Union’s policies on gender equality. The essay intends to analyse the representations and norms in terms of a gender system. The theoretical framework consists of theories on normalization and gender system. The method used is called "What’s the problem?" developed by Carol Lee Bacchi. To achieve gender equality the EU produces policies on gender mainstreaming, this study analyses three of these policy documents. The result of the analysis shows that there has been no major change in the representation of problems in the documents and that they are reproducing stereotypical norms. The result also shows that the representations of problems are possible to explain with the theory on gender system, which allows further studies to develop a well-grounded critique of the EU policies.

This work is a discourse analysis on a case study of Swedish school politic. Whith Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’-method this thesis conducts an analysis of the two propositions ’Ett mer likvärdigt skolval’ and ’Ökad likvärdighet för skolhuvudmän’. The method’s strength is that it seeks what’s presupposed in policy and problematizes it. The research questions are from ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ and are as follows: 1) What problem representations can be found in P58 and P161? Is anyone more prominent? 2) What presuppositions underpin this representation of the ‘problem’? 3) What’s left unproblematic? Can the ‘problem’ be thought about differently? The analysis showed that the problem is the high concentration of students with the same weak socioeconomic background at schools and school segregation which is contingent of the residential segregation. The presupposition to this problem representation is the idea of school as a democratic meeting point for students with different backgrounds. The school segregation causes the school to fail being a meeting point of that sort. The school choice enables school segregation and the so called ‘white flight’-phenomenon. The voluntary segregation was not accustomed for in the propositions but that provides ground for further research.

The Swedish Library Act stipulates the libraries responsibility to pay specific attention to people with impairments. However, no explicit definition of impairments or disability is offered. Findings in previous disability research show that using the term disability without connection to a theoretical framework leads to an understanding of disability as a phenomenon simply caused by the impairments of individuals rather than aspects of the environment. In the everyday usage disability is thereby commonly determined by visually overt signifiers as wheelchairs or hearing aids. “Invisible” impairments and social or relational aspects of disability is seldom accounted for. In this study, ten randomly selected present public library plans were analyzed through a discourse analysis, focusing on how disability is perceived in the plans. Findings show that disability is predominantly understood as a phenomenon caused by impairments connected to individuals and that these individuals usually come in second place when library services are planned and designed. Furthermore, the design of library services is also depicted as something that could cause disability, especially aspects of the physical environment and alternative formats to facilitate reading are in focus. The acknowledgement of attitudinal or relational aspects of disabilities were not visible in the plans that were analyzed. The overall emerging picture is thus a traditional view of what libraries and library use are, as well as a traditional view of what causes disability. Nevertheless, the responsibility to pay specific attention to people with disabilities is evident and a strong connection to human rights is thereby visible.

This research is based on analyzing policys of the sparsely populated area (glesbygd) in Sweden formulated during cabinet of Reinfeldt and cabinet of Löfven. The purpose is to contribute knowledge about the sparsely populated areas construction thought the cabinets policys. The investigation has focused on what problems that has been constructed through policys, the causes behind the problems investigating through assumptions and presumptions, keywords and the dichotomy city/ sparsely populated area and the effects produced by the constructed problems. The method that has been used is a critical policy study (WPR) that is a kind of discursive analysis that is based on social constructive theory. The interest is furthermore to compare the two different governemnts to see similarities and differences. The result shows that the sparsely populated area has a negative development, the presumption and assumption is rooted in the sparsely populated area deviate from the city and that both the residents and the government are accountable to the represented problems. The results has been interpreted trough the theory center and periphery relation and urban preference that describe the results by thinking that there is a urban norm that permeate the thinking and agenda setting of the sparsely populated area.

The Finnish police have power and influence as they are gate keepers of the criminal justice system. Governmental crime reduction policies rely on the actions of the police and in 2020 the Finnish police made a TikTok video to warn adolescences about dangers of sexting. My thesis uses Lerner’s Just world hypothesis and Bacchi’s What’s the problem represented to be as a theoretical framework, and multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA) to identify how the victim is represented in the TikTok video. The analysis on the content of the TikTok video is representing the victim as culpable for the crime against him/her. When the analysis is applied to the theoretical framework, it can be argued that the instructive TikTok video bears pressing social and institutional problems and extends people’s responsibility for avoiding crime and therefore fails achieving a balanced policy between crime prevention and criminal justice response.

Children’s rights and childhood are concepts that are a part of everyday discussions for many people around the world, but the understanding of the concepts shifts through time and space. The Convention on the Right of the Child, CRC, is supposed to protect children’s rights and relies upon the idea of childhood that describes children both as active agents and in need of protection. UNICEF, an organization within the UN, has the CRC as a guiding principle to achieve its mission to improve the lives of every child globally. However, previous research has criticized the CRC and UNICEF for ignoring particular children’s needs and having a western bias. Thus, even if an international social work program aims to protect children’s rights, it can end up excluding the needs of particular groups of children. This study aims to provide an understanding of how the problem of children’s rights discriminations is represented to be in UNICEF’s campaign #ENDviolence. The study fulfills the aim by using Carol Bacchi’s approach “What’s the problem represented to be?” WPR, and its six guiding questions. The empirical data is UNICEF’s campaign report, because the present study aims to investigate children’s rights discrimination, and the organization works with children and uses the CRC as a guiding principle. The study uses the WPR approach because it stresses that problems are created and given meanings through policies and programs. This study also uses the social constructionist theory and the two concepts, intersectionality and intertextuality, to provide a broader understanding. The results show that the campaign does only have a limited intersectional perspective, by not including children’s different identities, relating to such as race, nationality, alternative gender identification and sexuality, and abilities/disabilities, and it also does not acknowledge children’s multiple identities. Instead, the problem representation solely relies upon the concepts of sex (boy/girl) or age. Hence, the campaign leaves particular children and their needs unrecognized. An explanation for this approach is the campaign’s stable intertextual connection to the UN, and the writings, CRC and SDGs, Sustainable development goals. The campaign also tends to have a western bias, through silencing western countries, the data it uses and how it presents the data. The campaign ignores particular children and how institutional structures may affect them differently because of their identities. Thus, discrimination and violence against specific children can continue and suggested solutions would not necessarily help them.

This thesis examines the politicization of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice in Sweden since 1989, and explores problem representations of prevalence within the recently proposed penal reforms to reduce the minimum age of criminal responsibility, implement stricter regulations for young offenders, and establish youth prisons. Specifically, this thesis aimed to investigate whether efforts to address the issue of juvenile delinquency are an effect of crisis-based politicization, and if the recently proposed penal reforms reflect the identified global trend of defending old and retaliatory principles of juvenile justice.  The research was conducted by applying a comprehensive theoretical framework, including politicization theory and the perspectives of humane neoclassicism, hegemonic neoliberalism and cultures of control, combined with a single case study design, including process tracing and the WPR approach to policy analysis.  The research reveals that juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice is currently being politicized in terms of crisis and that such politicization has been historically present, although it did not lead to drastic changes of the penal system. Additionally, it reveals that the problem representations are heavily influenced by the ideology of hegemonic neoliberalism and cultures of control. Altogether, the findings attest to a departure from previous traditions and a shift towards a culture of control.

The planet’s biodiversity is in a worrying state. Palm oil production significantly contributes to biodiversity loss in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia. Unfortunately, the different forms of public and private regulation in place have had limited success in regulating the sector and protecting the environment. Three of the biggest palm oil traders – Cargill, Musim Mas, and Wilmar International – were chosen as subjects of an embedded case study to answer whether their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts have the potential to drive transformation in the palm oil sector towards more environmental sustainability.  This thesis contributes to the debate around the role of business actors in Global Governance and their ability to tackle social and environmental problems caused by their business models with CSR. The thesis engages deductively with capitalism-critical theories on CSR. Carol Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” (WPR) approach will guide a discourse analysis of the 2019 sustainability reports of the three companies regarding their efforts to improve sustainability in the palm oil sector. A comparison with research articles and NGO reports reaches the conclusion that the measures taken by Cargill, Musim Mas, and Wilmar are not enough to improve sustainability sufficiently.

Barnperspektivet har inte alltid prioriterats i Sveriges lagstiftning och barn har heller inte alltid fått vara delaktiga i beslut gällande sig själva. Regeringen skrev en proposition med argument för att inkorporera barnkonventionen till svensk lag och den 1 januari år 2020 genomfördes detta. Denna studies syfte har varit att se hur barnperspektivet, samt barns rättigheter kommer till uttryck i propositionen till barnkonventionen, vilka argument som har använts för att motivera inkorporeringen samt hur detta kan avse påverka det sociala arbetet. Studien har tre frågeställningar formulerade utifrån syftet som har besvarats genom metoden What’s the problem represented do be (WPR), som är en analysmetod inom policyanalys, samt med ett barndomssociologiskt perspektiv. Resultatet har visat att barnperspektivet samt barns rättigheter är centrala begrepp i propositionen samt att ett stärkande av dessa i praktiken är ett av argumenten som används för att inkorporera barnkonventionen. Deras starkaste och återkommande argument grundas i att stärka barnets rättigheter och delaktighet i beslut samt att öka barnperspektivet i myndighetsutövning. I samband med beslutet att inkorporera barnkonvention i svensk lag tillkom det nya transformeringar av befintliga lagar, vilket i sin tur påverkar det sociala arbetet, både i arbetssätt och metoder, samt i förhållningssättet gentemot barn. Ett sätt som lagstiftaren kunnat avse att påverka det sociala arbetet är genom att implementera ett ökat barnrättsbaserat synsätt, vilket ska genomsyra alla verksamheter som arbetar med och för barn.

In 2015 every member of the United Nations accepted Agenda 2030, a guideline for sustainable development with the aim of keeping the temperature from rising above two degrees Celsius. However, it’s still not clear what it seeks to sustain, and the logic behind the concept remains elusive. This thesis aims to examine the meaning behind environmental sustainability by investigating how Agenda 2030 is interpreted by urban planners in Malmö, through analysing the problematisations made in the environmental programme for environmental sustainability in Malmö. The analysis relies on the idea that a policy is created in order to solve a problem. By examining what is seen as a problem the underlying logic of the policies will be discerned. By examining the problematisations of the environmental programme of the municipality of Malmö between 2019-2020 the research will elucidate what environmental sustainability means in the context of Malmö, Sweden. The research showed that the municipality wishes to make optimal use of environmental sustainability as a tool for social, economic and environmental development through changed behaviour of businesses, staff at Malmö Stad, and its citizens. The municipality’s environmental programme implies that unsustainability stems from lack of knowledge, which causes people to make unsustainable choices. Environmental sustainability, as presented, by the municipality of Malmö’s policy document to be about optimising and increasing the environment’s beneficial effects for humans.