This study examines the strategic utility of Swedish Special Operations Forces (SOF) at the political level. Utilizing Colin S. Gray's framework, the research analyzes how these elite units provide significant strategic benefits through operations in Afghanistan, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Swedish SOF enhances political decision-mak-ing flexibility and achieves strategic goals with minimal resources by enabling rapid and flexible responses to international crises. The analysis highlights the strategic value of SOF in supporting Sweden's foreign policy objectives and strengthening international alliances. Political discourse, reflected in parliamentary debates and official documents, underscores the strategic utility of SOF. This study contributes to the understanding of SOF's role in the broader strategic context, emphasizing their importance as a tool for political and military leaders. It also identifies areas for further research, particularly the military-strategic utility of SOF and comparative analyses of different operations.

I detta arbete ställs ungdomarnas politiska aspekt i fokus, en marginaliserad grupp i områden med låg socioekonomisk status och socialt utsatthet. Ungdomar idag anser sig inte ha några reella möjligheter till politiskt inflytande trots att de vill vara med och påverka. Idag flödar kriminalitet i förorter, låga inkomster och möjligheterna till högre grad av medborgarskap stryps till hårdare. Syftet i arbetet är att ge ungdomarna i dessa områden en röst att dela sitt perspektiv genom att följa deras demokratiska utveckling mot medborgarskap. Tillvägagångsättet för detta arbete har varit i form av material från forskningsstudien NESLA. Arbetet är en kvalitativt komparativ studie om ungdomars sociala kapital. Teorin som används är formulerad Robert D. Putnam om socialt kapital och etnisk diversitet. Genom analys av invånarnas bakgrund, deltagande, utbildning och inkomst visar att områdena som använts faller under definitionen som utsatt, utanförskap och marginaliserade. Resultaten visar att ungdomarna känner låg samhällskänsla och inflytande, tilliten och samarbeten blir lidande. Resultaten visar även att ungdomarna i det ena området känner högre socialt kapital och att ungdomars sociala kapital inte är direkt relaterat till områdets höga etniska diversitet vilket således inte lett till ungdomarnas låga känsla för inflytande och samhällskänsla.

De globala hållbarhetsmålen, antagna år 2015, ska verka för en global satsning för ökad social, ekonomisk, och miljömässig hållbarhet. I styrdokument publicerade 2018 från FN uppmanas berörda parter på olika nivåer att inkorporera mer ideellt engagemang i form av volontärarbete. Detta för att kunna etablera en lokal förankring som ska underlätta genomdrivandet av de 17 målen, med tillhörande 169 delmål. En typ av volontärarbete som vuxit fram de senaste 20 åren är så kallade volontärresor, där ofta unga västerlänningar åker för att hjälpa till i projekt i utvecklingsländer, i kombination med nöjesresor. I denna studie undersöks hur projekt som erbjuds av svenska volontärresebyråer kan relateras till de globala hållbarhetsmålen, samt hur olika publikationer från FN om volontärarbete och hållbar turism kan förstås utifrån kommersiell volontärturism. Här har fyra svenska volontärresebyråers projektbeskrivningar synats och jämförts med delmålen för Agenda 2030. Metoden som använts är en kvalitativ innehållsanalys av projektbeskrivningar från volontärresebyråernas hemsidor. Rättighetsperspektivet (Human Rights Based Approach) har använts vid analysen för att se på vilket sätt projektbeskrivningarna kan ses vara rättighetsbaserade. Resultaten visar på att volontärturism främst berör hållbarhetsmål för utbildning och biologisk mångfald, genom engelskundervisning och vård av djur och natur. I de projekt som finns kan kvalitén på de insatser som görs ofta inte garanteras, och en medvetenhet kring hållbarhetsmålen tycks heller inte finnas. Engagemanget kan därför ses adressera effekterna av strukturella problem, men inte verka för en lösning av de grundläggande orsakerna till problemen. En förbättring som föreslås för att volontärturism ska kunna bidra till en väg till utveckling är att öka kopplingen i projekten till Agenda 2030 genom kunskapsspridning. / The sustainable development goals, published in 2015, were created as a global effort to increase sustainable social, economic and environmental development. In documents published in 2018 from the UN, relevant actors are encouraged to incorporate more voluntary work on different levels of society, in order to establish a local anchoring for the 17 goals with its’ 169 sub-targets. One kind of non-profit work that has gained popularity in the last 20 years are the so-called volunteer travels, where tourists, often young Westerners, travel in order to help out in developing countries, in combination with leisure activities. In this study, descriptions of projects that are offered by Swedish volunteer- travel agencies have been examined as to how they relate to the Sustainable Development Goals, along with how different publications from the UN on how volunteerism and sustainable tourism can be understood in regard to commercial volunteer tourism. Here, four Swedish volunteer tourist agencies have been examined and compared to the sub-targets for the Sustainable Development Goals, also known as Agenda 2030. The method used is a qualitative content analysis of the project descriptions found on the web pages of the volunteer tourist agencies. The Human Rights Based Approach has been used to analyse the data in order to investigate in what way the project descriptions can be seen as rights based. The result shows that volunteer tourism primarily is related to development goals concerning education and biological diversity, through English classes and care of animals and nature. The established projects that are available often cannot guarantee the quality of the efforts being made and do not seem to incorporate an awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals. The activity can therefore be seen as addressing the effects of structural problems, rather than a solution of the underlying causes of the problems. A possible improvement that is suggested for volunteer tourism to contribute more to a road to development, is to more emphasize the connection between projects in volunteer tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals, mainly through knowledge sharing.

This research paper aims to analyze France and the UK’s policies on surrogacy from a marxist and gender perspective. It will also look at the EU’s normative role as surrogacy is a practice that can be perceived as contradictory to the EU’s values as there are a number of issues that arise due to cross-border surrogacy arrangements. There are four main issues when it comes to surrogacy practices: the exploitation of women, the commodification of women, the commodification of children, and an indirect issue which is the definition of legal parentage which determines the citizenship of the child which is essential when it comes to cross-border surrogacy arrangements. This paper concludes that the lack of common regulation is problematic. As there is no consensus, cross-border surrogacy arrangements are on the rise which exacerbates the exploitation of surrogate women from developing countries. This, in turn, deepens the divide between developed and developing countries. Lastly the lack of consensus on legal parentage leads to citizenship issues which put individuals at the risk of being stateless.

Legitimacy is a necessary precondition for a well-functioning judicial system and it can be achieved in a variety of ways. One way of achieving legitimacy, that the Swedish legislator has chosen, is to constitute a system where lay judges work alongside professional judges in the Swedish courts. Lay participation in the courts are thought to fulfill many purposes and one of them is that they are expected to add new knowledge and additional perspectives to the courts. In other words, the Swedish legislator expect the lay judges to have opinions that, if not contrast then at least, complement the opinions of the professional judge. Nevertheless, previous research on Swedish judgements has found that the four members of the court are completely unanimous in about 95% of the judgments in criminal matters that the Swedish district courts delivers. By conducting a survey study this thesis shows that Swedish lay judges and professional judges has differing opinions in a number of matters that, according to the focal concerns theory, influence their sentencing decisions. The results of the study also show that lay judges, in comparison to the professional judges, are more prone to advocate for imprisonment if the perpetrator is deemed guilty. Furthermore, by combining earlier research and theories on the subject, the thesis proposes an explanation to why such a high level of consensus can be observed in the delivered judgements. Lastly, the thesis discusses what implications the study’s results have on the arguments that the Swedish legislator use to justify Sweden’s system of lay judges.

Denna uppsats behandlar den förändrade styrning av svensk skogspolitik som infördes i Sverige 1993, och hur denna styrning påverkat den biologiska mångfalden i de svenska skogarna. Styrningsformen, vanligen benämnd ”frihet under ansvar”, bygger på frivillighet och avreglering och har en tydlig förankring i en nyliberal ideologi. Det gäller även den privata hållbarhetscertifiering som växt fram och haft påtaglig påverkan på svenskt skogsbruk. Mina två forskningsfrågor lyder så här: 1.Hur har den lagstiftning som infördes 1993, tydligt inspirerad av nyliberala värden, påverkat den biologiska mångfalden i svensk skog? 2. Behövs det ökad statlig reglering inom skogsbruket för att bevara den biologiska mångfalden? Och i så fall, hur skulle sådana regleringar kunna se ut? Detta är en kvalitativ studie som utöver litteratur- och faktainläsning kompletterats med intervjuer med sex företrädare för aktörer som är engagerade i skogsfrågor. Svaret på min första forskningsfråga är inte helt entydigt. Den privata hållbarhetscertifieringen FSC har inneburit vissa miljövinster och det har delvis växt fram ett större hållbarhetsperspektiv inom skogsbruket sedan den nya lagstiftningen kom till. Samtidigt minskar andelen så kallad kontinuitetsskog, skog som aldrig kalavverkats, tydligt. Dessa äldre skogar är centrala för den biologiska mångfalden. Ett stort antal rapporter pekar också på en krissituation för mångfalden i skogen. Pressen på att få fram mer skogsråvara växer också, vilket bland annat innebär kortare omloppstider i skogsbruket. Även det är negativt för den biologiska mångfalden. Inget tyder på att den rådande politiska styrningen kan hantera ovanstående problematik. Svaret på forskningsfråga två är därför att det behövs någon form av ökad statlig reglering. I slutanalysen tar jag upp ett antal förslag på tänkbara regleringar.

Sverige har länge haft ett stort biståndsengagemang gentemot Afghanistan som innefattat ett stort ekonomiskt bidstånd och mindre civila insatser för civilbefolkningens del. Efter terrorattackerna i New York, USA, den 11 september kom det svenska engagemanget i allt större utsträckning att handla om säkerhet, både för den afghanska befolkningens räkning men också för Sverige som stat. Studien undersöker huruvida en diskursförskjutning skett i den svenska afghanistandiskursen i kontexten Kriget mot terrorismen.

From 2018, the Swedish public sector will change to become more digitalized. The main goal is that Sweden will be the best country in handling the problems of tomorrow where its population is more than competent in using digital programs and navigating in a complex digital world. The Swedish school system plays an important part in educating its citizens regarding digital competence. For this to become reality, teachers play a vital role in making sure that the political guidelines are realized in the classroom. Herein lies a potential problem when teachers are unwilling to change the school or perhaps are not capable of doing so in the first place. Based on implementation theory this study seeks to examine if there is an underlying problem in the dynamic relation between the political guidelines and the teachers’ attitude towards change. In doing so interviews have been conducted to come close to the teachers’ opinions on the matter. The study shows mixed results in that teachers are positive to some of the changes but at the same time, it brings about negative aspects regarding time-consuming work that puts a strain on the teachers’ professions and makes the implementation difficult in certain aspects.

The purpose of this study is to examine the party leader of the Swedish democrats, Jimmie Åkesson. The aspects that we look into is if there are any rhetorical differences in his speeches at Almedalen the year of 2011 and 2018. Along with the rhetorical side the other aspect that will be examined is the differences in ideas and ideological roots that shines through at the two different speeches at Almedalen. In order to point out differences we used two different methods. The method used in the rhetorical spectrum is based on Bo Rhenbergs steps to analyse political speeches. For the part that focuses on what ideas that mediates and which types of ideological roots his speech derives to, we used Mats Lindbergs analysis to identify values and an own constructed model based on literature regarding ideologies for the ideological analysis.  What we find in the rhetorical analysis is that Åkesson's rhetoric has changed marginally. It appears that he uses more of ethos' argumentation at the number 2018 than at 2011. Åkesson thus uses much of all the three rhetorical aspects. It also appears that the shift between the different styles Åkesson uses to convey the speech to the audience changes something between them both years. ​In the idea and ideological analysis, here too, the differences are relatively small. The actual differences in which values ​​the speech contains are few, but they exist. Differences are not based on the fact that the party or Jimmie Åkesson has changed values ​​and started to lean more to the right or to the left, instead the differences lie on which topics are in focus.

The aim of this study is to investigate the Swedish curriculum’s and high school teacher’s views on educating democratic citizens. More than any other country Swedish schools puts value in students’ rights to influence their own education and everyday life in school, an aim portrayed in the curriculum and a heavy amount of research on the subject. The question imposed will be analyzed through three central themes surrounding the school as a democratic institution – the school’s two-sided mission as suppliers of knowledge and educating democratic citizens, the possibility of students to exert influence, and class councils as an arena for deliberative democracy. These three themes will further be analyzed through a theoretical framework consisting of Robert A Dahl’s criteria for a democratic process, customized for an educational environment with the help of earlier research, including the writings of educational philosopher John Dewey.   The result of the study is that although these three themes show great potential in shaping students into democratic citizens, in theory, the participating teachers speak of a difficulty in transforming these goals in their everyday work following a number of obstructions. A few examples of such is time pressure, focus on grades and lack of knowledge as well as lack of interest in participating among students.