The transhumanist movement has been hailed as optimistic and forward thinking in itsambition to “ascend humanity beyond its biological constraints” and bring it to the next stageof evolution. However, critics such as Nicholas Le Dévédec have claimed that the movementrepresents a reversal of the Enlightenment project of autonomy, despite claims otherwise. Inthis paper, we shall adopt the perspective of the moral philosophy of an Enlightenmentthinker important for the democratic thought of the era: Immanuel Kant. With an emphasis onKant’s conception of Dignity and the second formulation of the categorical imperative, thestudy shows that Kantianism is irreconcilable with transhumanism. The findings not onlyexpand upon Dévédec’s claims, but also emphasizes the potential of dignity as a concept indelineating the limits and use of enhancement technology.

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This study aims to examine factors that have contributed to inhibit Russia’s democratic development, and what effects these factors have on human rights. The study mainly focuses on three topics, which are the following: economic development, historical heritage and political culture, and corruption. To be able to analyze these topics I will use the democratization theory to see how it has taken place in Russia. The text analysis will use reports including Freedom House and Human Rights Watch’s annual world reports, and scholarly literature. The conclusions of this study shows that all examined factors have contributed to the decline of democracy in Russia. Also, Russia’s democratic setback have had a very negative impact on human rights. Further, the examined factors aren’t alone in explaining the democratic setback, there are other reasons as well. For example, president Putin have been undermining democracy since he became president in 2000.

Teaching students about democracy and strengthening their abilities to act and perform within a democratic society is according to the curricula for the Swedish educational system an important task for any Swedish teacher. In social sciences, however, these aspects play an even greater role as the current curricula for civic education clearly states that civic education should offer students the opportunity to learn about democracy and its various forms and mechanisms. As there are probably about as many thoughts and views on democracy as there are people, it is to be expected that all teachers do not treat the subject the same. Previous studies have shown that there are discrepancies between how democracy is being implemented during classes, which has proved to be a problem that affects students’ further ability and wishes to engage and act within a democratic system outside and after school. For this reason, I have chosen to further study this phenomenon, to see whether there truly are differences regarding the implementation of democracy in different classrooms, and if these differences can be associated with which course or program the students are taking.  The study has been done through participant observation, where I have examined how teachers in four different courses of civic education in upper secondary school implement democracy in their classes. In the analysis I have sought for signs of discrepancies depending on which course the students have been studying (through vocational or university preparatory programs) and tried to see which form of democracy (electoral or deliberative democracy) that seems to permeate the classroom activity the most. Judging from these observations, it seems that the further up the course ladder we climb, the more deliberative the classroom democracy seems to get.

Securitization is the move in which an issue is argued to pose an existential threat to a referent object and has to be resolved with extraordinary measures. Speech acts are considered to be the starting point for the securitization of an issue. This thesis viewed governmental counter-terrorism strategies as potential carriers of speech acts - hence the strategies could constitute the start of terrorism becoming securitized by a government. By using a generic speech act typology created by Holger Stritzel, which combines critical discourse analysis with the securitization theory on Swedish and British counter-terrorism strategies, the thesis identifies a speech act in the most recent British strategy. The second finding is that in the case where the speech act occurred, the human rights discourse was significantly lower, compared to the cases where no speech act occurred. The thesis also provides suggestions for future research on the topic of speech acts.

Demokratiseringens tillbakagång i nutida Ryssland har väckt en rad frågor angående de olika orsaker som kan ha påverkat den. Ämnet är intressant eftersom Ryssland har varit på det spåret med demokratiseringen av landet och även försökt etablera demokratiska institutioner. Men det visade sig att efter Mikhail Gorbatjovs och Boris Jeltsins tid har demokratiseringen gått tillbaka i samband med Vladimir Putins ankomst till makten. Den nya presidenten införde en rad reformer inom politiken, men framförallt påverkade detta de mänskliga rättigheterna i landet. Syftet med detta arbete var att utöka förståelsen för den ryska politiken och den tillbakadragna demokratiseringen som drabbat landet, samt hitta samband med den tillbakadragna yttrandefriheten. För undersökningen har valts att fokusera på de olika orsakerna till demokratiseringens tillbakagång, sådana som nationalism, religiös fundamentalism, den auktoritära nostalgin och även den civila arenan som behandlar frågor om medborgarnas och ledarens attityder mot demokrati. Slutsatserna har påvisat att det finns ett starkt samband mellan den ökade nationalismen och fundamentalismen, och den yttrandefrihetens tillbakagång.

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In 2010 the EU initiated negotiations for new agreements forming the legal basis for relations between it and partner countries of the EaP, termed Association Agreements (AA). Negotiations were entered with all three countries in the South Caucasus as well as Ukraine and Moldova, and foresaw greater political association through extensive rule harmonisation. Yet, when negotiations came to an end at the Eastern Partnership summit in November 2013, Azerbaijan had dropped out, Ukraine made a last minute U-turn, and Armenia instead opted for Russian President Putin’s brand new Eurasian Customs Union (ECU). At the time, the change of events was to a large extent ascribed to Russian coercion. Based on empirical material from over 200 news articles, I perform a descriptive data analysis and process tracing, to elucidate what instruments were used and why. I argue that there is a strong relation between the prior relations of dependence between the target and Russia, lending coercive potential to varying degrees. The individual relations of dependence not only explain the choice of instrument but also its relative success.

The purpose of this paper is to study and describe Poland’s policy co-ordination system, demonstrate the decline in Polish administrative capacity over time, and attempt to find and explain institutionality- driven links between the two. For this purpose, three policy co-ordination systems were deconstructed, a mechanism for analysing that data created, and information on Poland’s administrative performance was collected. The study finds that some structural features within Poland’s hierarchical, amalgamated co-ordination system can foster incentives to suppress the improvement of its own public administration.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine if there is a problem with compliance in the World Trade Organization, to investigate the validity of the managerial and the political economy approaches to compliance and to analyze reform proposals that tackle the issue of compliance, pursuing improvement of the system. Drawing on the scenario of increasing legalization and cooperation in trade, the first question is examined by way of interviewing trade experts and officials as well as analyzing case studies that are pertinent to the research at hand. The second question – if management is preferred to enforcement as to induce compliance – is answered by analyzing official WTO Dispute Settlement reports, interviews, case reviews and articles on retaliation and compliance written by different authors. The third question is answered as a reflection of the findings of the first two questions. Analysis on the managerial theory of compliance examine whether enforcement plays a minor role in inducing compliance in the WTO, if there is a propensity to comply amongst states and if noncompliance is inadvertent rather than a result of calculation of interests. In the other hand, tests conducted on the enforcement approach to compliance investigate the importance of retaliation in WTO Dispute Settlement, the necessity of an enforcement tool and the claim that noncompliance is a political decision. Tests conducted suggest that the enforcement school of compliance is correct when stating that noncompliance is a political decision, resulted from careful calculation of interests. The research indicates that the WTO Dispute Settlement presents a dual facet of compliance, in which the enforcement tool is responsible for allowing the managerial effects to take place. In this regard, the enforcement tool alone is seen as inappropriate, especially if economic asymmetries are present. An approach that accommodates both enforcement and managerial aspects is prescribed. The research has indicated that successful reform proposals should aim at increasing the credibility of the threat of retaliation as to follow the diagnosis verified by the tests conducted.