Sweden has a long tradition of participation in different kinds of peacekeeping missions. During the Cold War, Sweden’s troop contributions were exclusively focused on UN operations, but in the early 1990s Sweden’s official troop contribution policy changed from an “only under the UN flag” position to one of “only under UN Security Council mandate”. It is fair to say that Sweden’s foreign policy has undergone fundamental changes and the country has been contributing military forces to both EU and NATO missions for quite some time. Swedish foreign policy debate has largely been characterized by a sense of political unity or consensus. Despite this, there have been occasions when the political parties have been in disagreement. There are studies that confirm that the level of conflict in the foreign policy debate has increased over time. Political and ideological disagreements do exist and the political landscape has changed during the last 10 years. These changes should also have an impact on foreign policy decisions. The aim of this study is to investigate the political decision making process regarding Swedish military international missions. It will examine the political unity in the decisions concerning eight different cases; Kosovo (1999-2010), Congo (2003) , Liberia (2003-2006), Afghanistan (2004-2014), Chad (2007), Somalia (2009-2017), Libya (2011) and Mali (2015 à).  The focus for the study will be the political unity regarding the decision process within Parliament and, more specifically, the work of the combined Foreign affairs and Defence committee, and the debates in Parliament. The empirical analysis reveals that the rate of political controversy has increased. However, there is still a great sense of unity and broad agreement among the political parties on the main question regarding troop contributions.  In many cases any conflict and debate concern side issues such as timings, personnel and finance. The two main parties, the Social Democrats and the Moderate Party, are generally in agreement. They also conduct negotiations before a proposition becomes official, which leads to less conflict in the subsequent debate. The study also reveals a higher level of opposition from the Left party and from the Sweden Democrats. Some of their opposition can have ideological explanations. The Left party is mainly critical about participation in NATO missions.

The aim of the diploma thesis is to create a comprehensive description of the ECAs, to describe the way of working and the risks that the agency must take. ECAs have long history and are influenced by the many events that contribute to the current form of ECA. The last major event that affected the meaning of the ECA is the recent financial and economic crisis, thanks to which the agency gained an even stronger position than before. In the theoretical part of the diploma thesis will be summarized information about export credit agencies gained from existing bibliography. There will be described various models of ECA, the types of provided services and the risks which are connected with process of granting loans in this part. The analytical part will be focused on a detailed description of the selected export credit agencies. There will be analyzed their way of working, structure, types of products and the impact of the aid. In the conclusion, a comparison is made of selected ECAs using selected indicators. There will be summary of results gained from analysis in the conclusion of the thesis.

In order to restart economic growth in Latin America after the so-called "lost decade," most countries in the late 1980s began implementing neoliberal reforms aimed at economic transformation. The most important economic rules, which were summarized by John Williamson and named Washington consensus, aimed at providing macroeconomic stability and much needed economic growth. At first, the transition to market economy seemed successful. After years of economic stagnation, the economy began to grow again, inflation was reduced, privatization provided much needed funds to the state treasuries and the attention of foreign investors turned towards the region. However, the initial success did not last long. Economic growth was far smaller, than what was originally expected, and many countries were failing in dealing with unemployment, poverty, and growing income inequality. Growing scepticism was then fuelled by a series of economic crises in the second half of the 1990s. Comparing the impact of neoliberal reforms on the economies of individual countries is problematic because the way in which they were carried out has differed in many countries. Countries have undergone reforms at different time, different speed and with different intensity. The scope of the implemented reforms also differed. In the...

This study highlights the structures and networks thatexist among financial analysts on the Swedish financial market. The study isbased on nine semi-structured interviews with buy- and sell-side analysts, anindependent analyst and an Investor Relations Manager. The theoretical framework of the study is based on acombination of the research fields Behavioral Finance and Social Studies ofFinance. These two research fields have proven to be a good basis for thequalitative approach used in the analysis. The study is divided into four thematic areas: Fundamentals / Psychology, Independence and consensus, Ranking and Social network. The results show that there are a large number offactors, structures and interpersonal relationships that affect how analystsmake their decisions and conduct their analysis. Among other things, theinterdependence between analysts and their counterparts prohibits the movetowards a more clear system for compensation. These structures can also have animpact on analysts' rationality from an individual perspective and a network perspective. Furthermore, we have found that technological developments willpose major challenges for the sell side's ability to generate revenues in the future. / Denna studie belyser de strukturer och nätverk som förekommer bland aktieanalytiker på den svenska finansmarknaden. Studien baseras på nio semi-strukturerade intervjuer av aktieanalytiker på köp- och säljsidan, en fristående analytiker samt en IR-ansvarig. Den teoretiska referensramen som studien baserar sig på är en kombination av forskningsfälten Behavioral Finance och Social Studies of Finance. Dessa två forskningsfält har visat sig utgöra en bra grund för den kvalitativa ansats som använts i analysen. Studien är uppdelad i fyra tematiska områden: Fundamenta/Psykologi, Självständighet under konsensus, Ranking och Nätverk. Resultaten visar att det finns ett stort antal faktorer, strukturer och interpersonella relationer som påverkar hur analytiker fattar sina beslut och genomför sina analyser. Bland annat innebär de ömsesidiga beroendena mellan analytikerna och deras motparter att en utveckling mot ett mer tydligt ersättningssystem förhindras. Dessa strukturer kan även ha en påverkan på analytikernas rationalitet ur ett individ- och nätverksperspektiv. Vidare har vi funnit att den tekniska utvecklingen kommer innebära stora utmaningar för säljsidans förmåga att generera intäkter i framtiden.

Consensus protocols are the core of modern blockchain systems, such as the Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Algorand networks. Thanks to these protocols, participants in a blockchain network can reach consensus on which blocks to add to a blockchain, to have a consistent chain of blocks in the whole network. Blocks are typically collections of transactions, e.g., transferring currency between participants, but can contain other data depending on the use case. Consensus protocols are difficult to design, test, and implement. Problems may only manifest in rare cases but can have disastrous consequences. Formal protocol models allow exhaustive analysis and formal verification. However, formal verification is only as good as the specification of the protocol. For example, specification properties could be vacuously true, or the specification may omit to mention liveness properties that are crucial for progress in a system implementation. This thesis describes the practical validation of a formal specification of Giskard, a consensus protocol used in the PlatON network. We translated key aspects of a formal model of Giskard in the Coq proof assistant to executable Python code, and integrated them into the Sawtooth blockchain framework. Then, we ran simulations of a blockchain network executing Giskard using Sawtooth, checking network node state properties of Giskard as well as its global safety properties. Automated clients from the Sawtooth network provided randomly generated transactions as input for the network. The implementation with the test results are available for reproducibility. Both consensus safety and liveness issues were found in the formal specification of Giskard during the simulations. Based on the previous informal English specification of Giskard, we propose a new formal specification which was validated to reach consensus on blocks in the simulated blockchain network and uphold the protocol’s crash and Byzantine failure tolerance to a certain degree. The improved formal model can serve as a new basis for verifying and implementing Giskard in the future. / Konsensusprotokoll utgör kärnan i moderna blockkedjesystem som Bitcoin-, Ethereum- och Algorandnätverken. Tack vare dessa protokoll kan deltagare i blockkedjenätverk nå konsensus om vilka block som ska läggas till, för att få en konsekvent blockkedja i hela nätverket. Block är vanligen samlingar av transaktioner, till exempel överföringar av valuta mellan deltagare, men kan också innehålla annan data beroende på användningsområdet. Konsensusprotokoll är svåra att designa, testa och implementera. Problem kanske bara visar sig i sällsynta fall, men kan ha katastrofala konsekvenser. Formella protokollmodeller tillåter uttömmande analys och formell verifiering. Men formell verifiering ger bara så goda resultat som protokollspecifikationen tillåter. Till exempel kan specfikationsegenskaper vara sanna innehållslöst eller så kan specifikationen underlåta att nämna framstegsegenskaper som är viktiga för att en systemimplementation inte ska låsa sig. Denna avhandling beskriver den praktiska valideringen av en formell specifikation av Giskard, ett konsensusprotokoll som används i PlatONnätverket. Vi översatte nyckelaspekter av en formell modell i bevisassistenten Coq till körbar Python-kod och integrerade koden i blockkedjeramverket Sawtooth. Sedan körde vi simuleringar av ett blockkedjenätverk som använder Giskard med hjälp av Sawtooth och undersökte Giskards tillståndsegenskaper för nätverksnoder och även dess globala säkerhetsegenskaper. Automatiserade klienter från Sawtooth-nätverket tillhandhöll slumpgenererade transaktioner som indata för nätverket. Implementeringen med testresultaten är tillgängliga för reproducerbarhet. Både säkerhets- och framstegsproblem hittades i den formella specifikationen av Giskard under simuleringarna. Baserat på en tidigare informell specifikation av Giskard på engelska föreslår vi en ny formell specifikation som validerades att nå konsensus på block i det simulerade blockkedjenätverket och att till en viss grad tolerera krascher och byzantinska fel. Den förbättrade formella modellen kan användas som en ny bas för att verifiera och implementera Giskard i framtiden.

The first chapter summarises basic characteristics of the export credit insurance, particularly focusing on the export credit insurance with state support. The second chapter summarises the issue of export credit insurance as a tool of export-oriented politics. The third one describes international organisations and international regulations affecting export credit insurance with state support. Tha last chapter summarises developement of export credit insurance from the beginning to the present time including contemporary economic crisis.

<p>Detta är en kvalitativ studie som inspirerats av fenomenografisk metod som behandlar olika aspekter av islams etablering i Sverige som är ett kulturkristet samhälle. Intervjuer har gjorts med representanter för tre olika trosinriktingar: Svenska kyrkan, Pingstkyrkan samt en frikyrkoförsamling med anknytning till Evangeliska Frikyrkan.</p><p>Syftet var att undersöka hur praktiserande kristna bemöter islam i samhället. Fokus läggs på kristna ledare och deras förhållningssätt med utgångspunkt i om de förespråkar polemik eller dialog, samt effekterna av dessa förhållningssätt. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna är dels en kunskapssociologisk teori av Berger och Luckmann, samt två olika religionsvetenskapliga teorier om dialog från Kyrkornas världsråd samt Swanberg och Westerlund ur ett normativt teologiskt perspektiv. Resultatet och analysen visar på att det finns en stor variation i förhållningssätt och attityd bland de kristna ledarna gentemot islam, beroende på vilken grad av konfrontation som förespråkas, samt på vilket plan i mötet man anser att tyngdpunkten ligger inom det sociokulturella, politiska eller teologiska.</p>

Detta är en kvalitativ studie som inspirerats av fenomenografisk metod som behandlar olika aspekter av islams etablering i Sverige som är ett kulturkristet samhälle. Intervjuer har gjorts med representanter för tre olika trosinriktingar: Svenska kyrkan, Pingstkyrkan samt en frikyrkoförsamling med anknytning till Evangeliska Frikyrkan. Syftet var att undersöka hur praktiserande kristna bemöter islam i samhället. Fokus läggs på kristna ledare och deras förhållningssätt med utgångspunkt i om de förespråkar polemik eller dialog, samt effekterna av dessa förhållningssätt. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna är dels en kunskapssociologisk teori av Berger och Luckmann, samt två olika religionsvetenskapliga teorier om dialog från Kyrkornas världsråd samt Swanberg och Westerlund ur ett normativt teologiskt perspektiv. Resultatet och analysen visar på att det finns en stor variation i förhållningssätt och attityd bland de kristna ledarna gentemot islam, beroende på vilken grad av konfrontation som förespråkas, samt på vilket plan i mötet man anser att tyngdpunkten ligger inom det sociokulturella, politiska eller teologiska.

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The diploma thesis deals with the credit problems in international trade. The thesis defines export crediting and possible risks associated with it. Furthermore, selected instruments used for damage elimination arising from the credit risk realization are presented. In connection with the most used instrument, the export credit insurance, the international institutional framework affecting the rules for its provision is analyzed. In the empirical part of the thesis first the market penetration with export credit insurance and its global development in relation to the buyers' payment behaviour is analysed. Moreover, this part is dedicated to the export character of the Czech Republic economy, development of the Czech market with export credit insurance and the assessment of the Export Guarantee and Insurance Corporation activities.