Föreliggande studie tillämpar diskursanalys i syfte att förstå var det råder samstämmighet eller konflikt kring huruvida Sverige ska sälja, spara eller annullera överskottet på utsläppsrätter inom EU:s och FN:s utsläppshandel. Genom kritisk diskursanalys har vi kategoriserat och kodat tio riksdagsdebatter mellan åren 2010 och 2014, i vilka en ekologisk diskurs och en ekonomisk diskurs kämpar om tolkningsföreträde. Bortsett från samstämmigheten att handel med utsläppsrätter – vilken kan ses som ekologisk modernisering – är ett viktigt verktyg för att minska klimatförändringar; råder öppen kamp kring hur ett överskott på utsläppsrätter ska hanteras. Kampen har delats in i sju kategorier baserat på huruvida: 1) ett beslut om annullering kan tas direkt eller om det krävs en utredning först, 2) en annullering är en symbolisk handling eller styrs av marknadens logik, 3) en försäljning leder till ökade utsläpp, 4) på vilket sätt överskottet ska fungera som förhandlingsstrategi under klimatmöten, 5) Sverige förlorar sitt klimatanseende vid en försäljning av överskott på utsläppsrätter, 6) utsläppshandeln i högre grad borde styras av politiker eller marknadsmekanismer, och slutligen 7) huruvida överskott på utsläppsrätter bör ses som ett lyxproblem. Eftersom det ännu inte finns en fixerad diskursiv entydighet angående hur överskott på utsläppsrätter ska hanteras, menar vi att ingen av diskurserna kan ses som helt hegemonisk. Den ekonomiska diskursen har dock patent på rationaliteten eftersom den, till skillnad från den ekologiska diskursen, har accepterat ekomodernismen. Om den ekonomiska diskursen blir hegemonisk är det sannolikt att ytterligare överskott på utsläppsrätter säljs.Nyckelord: klimatförändringar, EU-ETS, Kyotoprotokollet, ekologisk modernisering, diskursiv kamp. / The following study uses insights derived from discourse analysis to examine whether there is consensus or conflict regarding if Sweden should sell, save or invalidate the surplus of allowances within the emissions trading systems of the EU and the UN. Through critical discourse analysis, we have categorized and coded ten parliamentary debates between the year of 2010 and 2014, in which an ecological discourse and an economic discourse can be derived. Aside from the consistency that the emissions trading systems – which can be seen as ecological modernization - is an important tool to mitigate climate change; an open struggle can be seen regarding how a surplus of allowances should be governed. The struggle has been divided into seven categories based on whether: 1) a decision of invalidation can be taken directly or if an investigation is necessary, 2) an invalidation is a symbolic act or controlled by the logic of the market, 3) a sale directly leads to an increased amount of emissions, 4) in what way the surplus of allowances should serve as a negotiating strategy during international climate meetings, 5) Sweden’s climate profile will be lost in case of a sale, 6) the emissions trading systems to a higher rate should be controlled by politicians or mechanisms of the market, and finally 7) whether the surplus of allowances should be seen as a luxury problem. Since there is not yet a fixed unity regarding how surplus of allowances should be governed, we argue that none of the discourses can be seen as completely hegemonic. However, the economic discourse have positions on rationality due to that it, unlike the ecological discourse, has accepted the ecological modernisation. If the economic discourse becomes hegemonic it is likely that additional surplus of allowances will be sold.Key words: climate change, EU-ETS, the Kyoto Protocol, ecological modernisation, discursive struggle.

Nowadays, liberal democratic societies comprise the breeding ground for thriving right-wing populist parties. They share the “fundamental core of ethno-nationalist xenophobia, (…) and anti-political establishment populism” (Rydgren, 2004 p.475). Coeval research has acknowledged the threat that is entailed in the bespoken phenomenon; yet, its account is incomplete.  This study follows Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, in objecting to the individualist and rationalist tenets that inform previous research, to accentuate a neglected lens on the thrive of right-wing populism in Western liberal democracies. Their discourse theoretical frame was herein used as both theory and method, in a discourse analysis of the Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD) identity in German online newspaper discourse. The empirical material comprised 97 articles from Germany’s most popular national daily newspapers, which reported on the AfD in parliament, an AfD demonstration in Berlin, and the AfD’s youth organisation’s congress throughout April, May and June 2018. Ultimately, the study arrived at the conclusion that the sampled newspaper discourse identified ‘us’, the ‘benevolent democrats’ via the exclusion, and rejection of ‘them’, the ‘wicked right-wing populists’. Since such relation was markedly antagonistic proper, newspaper discourse may be considered to have contributed to the recent thrive of right-wing populism in Germany.

The Swedish preschool-model interlaces care, nurturing and learning and is organised to solve twin functions; providing children a playbased learning-environment and enabling parents to combine parenthood with work. The model was developed within the social sector then incorporated into the educational system 1998. This shift and the model´s “unique characteristics” praised by OECD formed the point of departure for this study. The aim of the thesis is to describe and analyse the discussions and negotiations shaping the Swedish preschool-model during 1968-1998. The research questions address: discursive themes; actors involved; governmental intentions; claims about the preschool´s task, pedagogical content and the preschool´s institutional identity and relationship to the institutions: social service, school and family. The study utilized abductive textual analysis inspired by discourse analysis and narrative approaches. Main text sources are: official reports, bills, steering documents, the preschool teachers´ periodical 1968 -1998 and a media debate. The results illuminate preschool-teachers´ struggle for a pedagogical identity and the construction of the educareconcept as a flexible and pragmatic solution to several societal interests and values. Governmental intentions concerning equality, emancipation and democratization have had great influence on the process in combination with a recurring theme about a revised preschool pedagogy with a strengthened focus on children´s learning. Political efforts to foster a preschool for all in a future are identified and described as one of the main discursive themes. Different standpoints about earlier school start are analyzed.  The overall result is that the framework and core features of the model laid down by the National Commission on Child care still has a great impact on the launched syllabus (Lpfö) in the end of the period as on the curriculum in a broader sense.

This thesis examines the lived experience of economic migration of young and degree level educated migrants from Poland to Britain. The main aim is to explore how the participants of economic migration within the borders of the European Union experience migrating. The special feature of this migration is the fact that they leave a postcommunist country and come to a country with a well established capitalist economy and long-standing democracy. The particular questions are: how these migrants construct their experience of migrating, are they faced with any problems while doing it, and if so - how do they resolve them? The data comes from twenty-two semi-structured interviews with migrants educated to degree level who were residents and worked in one of the regions of England at a professional level or below their qualifications (manual or simple clerical work). The research utilises the critical discourse analysis perspective; the data is approached with analysis focused on linguistic choices (lexical and grammatical) evident in the respondents’ statements. This kind of analysis enables observation and in-depth interpretation of the way experiences of migrating are constructed. The migrants’ narratives were full of discursive struggle while constructing their experience of migrating. Firstly, the interviewees made an effort to present their migration as rational. Secondly, they were trying to rationalise their financial needs to refute accusations of greed for money. Thirdly, the underemployed migrants justified their employment choices by distancing themselves from work below that which they were qualified for. Fourthly, the interviewees were making an attempt to withdraw from a multicultural community by constructing the negative Other. Exploring lived experience of living and working abroad reveals competitive discourses and ways of coping with ambivalence. Understanding these discursive practices requires knowledge of their beliefs and values that underpin the discourses available in the Polish postcommunist society. Overall, the narratives overflowed with dilemmas that showed this migration as more complicated on an individual level than the official discourse of free movement of people in the EU suggests. This thesis captures the migrants’ lived experience within one year after the EU enlargement; it reflects on the narratives being shaped when migrants were given the opportunity to introduce the new discourses on migration or re-think the old ones as a result of new macro-processes in the European Union. This research complements other studies exploring migrants’ voices in search of insight into what their experiences were and how they made sense out of them. However, with the methodology used, it focuses more on uncovering the struggle over arguments available to build their stories. It offers explanation to their discursive practices by analysing them against the discourses as being products of postcommunism. The study’s results may shed more light on recent processes within this group of migrants and also inform institutional policy and practice about problems affecting members of this group, reported in this thesis.