In 2014 when the international terrorist group the Islamic State (IS) declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria, more than 40,000 people travelled to join the terrorist group. According to the available data between 10-13% were women but the real number is assumed to be substantially higher. Among them were around 300 Swedish citizens who by the end of 2015 had travelled to Iraq and Syria to join IS. A significant number of these were women; in a 2017 study including 267 Swedish travellers, 24% were women. Researchers are puzzled by the phenomenon of female travellers joining IS. Because they are women specifically there are certain gendered assumptions attached which shape the discussion; women have long been assumed to be too peaceful to be involved with terrorism. While none of the Swedish women travellers have been reported to have become active terrorists, they still made headlines in the Swedish media. Despite this, there is almost no research on violent women and the narratives used by Swedish media and newspapers to describe them.

Does being more knowledgeable about the EU increase support for the free movement of people and, secondly, do more knowledgeable people show less ambivalence in their attitudes towards free movement? These are the questions I want to answer in this thesis. Based on the literature on attitude formation both towards immigration and European integration I conduct a regression analysis using Eurobarometer data from every EU country. Of particular importance is the concept of ‘attitudinal ambivalence’, where respondents hold conflicting opinions towards a subject when different aspects of that subject are primed. This is also the case for the free movement of people: less people support it when the inward mobility of other EU citizens is primed in the survey question. In this thesis I theorise that people who have more knowledge of the EU are more supportive of the freedom of movement and hold less ambivalent attitudes because they realise the inconsistency of their opinions. These predictions are supported by the results of the regression analysis, providing evidence that knowledge is an interesting variable in attitudinal research. Furthermore, this thesis contributes to the rather new field of attitudinal research into the free movement of people.

Drug trafficking is a rapidly growing phenomenon that has a significant impact on communities. How the Swedish authorities work together to combat that problem is regulated according to Swedish law, as professionals who have the closest contact with the public are the ones who have the greatest responsibility to act and decide in suspicious cases. Despite the hard work of crime fighting, society experiences the availability of a functioning drug market. High seizure statistics are presented by the Swedish Customs in recent years. Therefore, there has been an interest in investigating the phenomenon, taking into account that the seizure statistics are high and drug sales are still taking place. Institutions that work against crime fighting such as authorities are a starting point for understanding what is actually happening in Swedish society according to policy makers and decision makers. The purpose of the study is to investigate both how the Swedish Customs Authority's powers currently look and to compare the views between the Swedish Customs Service, the Police Authority and the Coast Guard regarding these powers and the legislative proposals that the Swedish Customs Service has put forward to increase crime fighting. The results show that expanded powers for customs officers are needed as well as "a clear, expedient and uniform regulation" for the fragmented powers in various laws and regulations. Finally, the theories that this research applies are linked to gain more understanding as to why the results look like this. According to the aforementioned authorities, drug smuggling can be limited in a more efficient way if the requirements of the Swedish Customs Administration are met.

This thesis strives to provide a new way of implementing the principle known as Responsibility to Protect (R2P). When traditionally associated with armed forces, this thesis will present the principle from a new angle, and in doing so illustrate its untapped potential as a tool for combating human suffering. The aim of this study is to normatively argue for R2P to also be applicable in a situation where water scarcity leads to such severe suffering that a state’s unwillingness or inability to manage the crisis puts people in a situation of despair equivalent with Crimes Against Humanity. The argumentation builds on a deductive inference where documents from the UN and the ICC lay the foundation for the premises. The study concludes that there exist circumstances where R2P could be invoked in the context of water scarcity, but advocates only the non-violent measures of the principle as responses.

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar is part of a much bigger trend towards democratic regression in Southeast Asia where military influence has played an important role. Previous research on the SEA region suggests that the citizenry has been overlooked in understanding how civil-military relations have been shaped. Rebecca L. Schiff’s concordance theory presumes that when concordance, i.e., agreement, between the military, political leadership, and the citizenry exists on the four indicators (1) social composition of officer corps, (2) political decision-making procedures, (3) recruitment method and (4) military style, military intervention in domestic politics is less likely to occur. The aim of this thesis is to conduct a comparative case study of Myanmar and Indonesia to understand how the three actors have shaped their respective civil-military relations. By applying concordance theory, a comparison is made to assess the theory’s predictive and explanatory power of the two cases. Results suggest that the two cases' political developments are in line with the theory. Indonesia demonstrates a higher degree of concordance among all indicators and has not experienced a military intervention in the studied time period. Comparatively, Myanmar demonstrates a low degree ofconcordance among all indicators and subsequently, military intervention in domestic politics is common. However, a lack of data on some indicators questions the strength of these claims. Collecting primary material for future research is suggested to analyse the concordance of all four indicators in depth and ensure an accurate representation of the citizenry for both cases.

Prison privatization has received notable attention in academic circles, but discussion has focused on the Global North, particularly the United States. On the other hand, little attention has been given to incarceration systems in general or prison privatization in the Global South. In this qualitative and deductive thesis, the subject of privatization in the field of correctional services is investigated with regard to South Africa, which stands out in the Global South due to it having two fully privately-run prisons, but also by having a large incarcerated population. The analysis is conducted based on an original framework of four levels of privatization, ordered from private involvement in the least crucial aspects of corrections management to the most, as well as the aspects of scope of privatization and the types of actors involved. Based on the analysis, the conclusions reached imply that private actors are involved to some degree with some aspects at all levels as well as that a variety of different actors are involved on different levels, and that the scope of privatization in South Africa is significant although this varies across levels. In total, this implies a relatively high degree of privatization in South Africa.

Is intersectionality the way forward: A textual analysis of development strategies in Myanmar Development strategies need new perspectives to effectively allocate resources to those most affected by natural hazards, conflicts, economic insecurities, and many more. This qualitative thesis suggests intersectionality in the form of an analysis to uncover hidden passages in and core values of development strategies. In turn evaluating if these strategies hold a necessary amount of awareness of vulnerable groups by crossing the sections gender and sexuality; age; class status; ethnicity; and disability. By examining two development strategies in Myanmar, one can conclude that there is a lack of intersectional approach when creating the outline of the interventions which suggests a lack of context-based evaluations of the issues in Myanmar, and in turn it suggests a lack of understanding on who is vulnerable.

The aim of this study is to examine the democratization process in Bosnia & Herzegovina since the Dayton Peace Agreement of 1995. By applying Linz & Stepans five arenas for a consolidated democracy on this case: Civil Society; Political Society; Rule of Law; State Apparatus and Economic Society, this paper wishes to provide the reader with a better understanding of the issues Bosnia & Herzegovina has had in its democratization development. The results of this study shows that Bosnia & Herzegovina lacks sufficiently in all arenas, and the greatest issues the country has includes nationalism, political clientelism and corruption.

The Swedish Armed Forces (SwAF) have been making internal efforts to enrol more women through changes in legislation and mandatory conscription, since the adoption of Resolution 1325 in the Swedish Parliament at the turn of the century. Since the alterations, an upward trend of female recruits as well as women making careers and reaching high ranking positions, has been identified. Consequently, raising other issues about how SwAF is making efforts to adapt their prevailing male dominated organization towards their now increasing female personnel.  To achieve the objective of understanding how male normativity is experienced in the Armed Forces, the study derives from explorative semi- structured interviews with female recruits, as well as previous studies conducted in the area, departing from a constructivist and feminist theoretical approach. The result supports, that women are nevertheless experiencing obstacles and are expected to repetitively prove their positions as soldiers, in terms of bodily differences, materiality, language, comradery, and community. It also speaks for continued efforts to broaden the Armed Forces' inclusivity, challenge gender norms and customs, and improve accessibility for female recruits, and female military personnel.

Sex tourism is a process whereby most commonly men from the Global North travel to the Global South to gain access to the bodies of women. This process perpetuates inequalities at the intersection of gender, race and class. This research seeks to uncover contemporary power relations in the relationship between male sex tourists from the Global North and female sex workers from the Global South. This research attempts to understand how sex tourism motivates problematic international gendered assumptions about Global South women by Global North men, whether and how the customers from the Global North are the dominant participants in the tourism-related sexual entertainment industry, and to what extent sex tourism is indeed exploitative. The research puzzle was addressed through data triangulation of a content analysis of men’s accounts as sex tourists and an expert interview. It was found that colonial patriarchal constructions of Global South women as available and passive and as commoditised objects of male lust are perpetuated in contemporary sex tourism in Thailand. Moreover, I argue that because the men that enlist the women’s sexual services are aware of the women’s deficient economic situation, these men are consciously exploiting these women to gain access to their bodies.