Studies suggests that there are differences between minorities from the Middle East in Western countries and natives regarding their attitudes to psychiatric illness, where the minority from Middle East have more negative attitudes towards psychiatric illness. While minorities from the Middle East comprise a significant share of the population in Sweden, there is a lack of studies that specifically investigates how their attitudes towards mental illness compares to the attitudes of Swedish born. The aim of this study is to investigate if men and women from the Middle East living in Sweden differ in their attitudes towards mental illness compared to men and women born in Sweden. The investigation is based on CAMI-S three attitude factors: “open-minded/pro-integration”, “fear/avoidance” and “community mental health ideology”. The study is based on questionnaires from 80 respondents, 48 born in Sweden and 32 born in the Middle East, where the respondents have answered questions based on CAMI-S. The answers have been compiled based on the three attitude factors and the relationship between the attitude factors and country of origin and gender have been analyzed with ANOVA. The null hypothesis is that there is no relationship between the three attitude factors and the independent variables “country of origin” and “gender”. The results show that there is a relationship between country of origin and the two first attitude factors, where the respondents from the Middle East had more negative attitudes towards mental illness compared to Swedes. Gender, on the other hand, had no statistically reliable relation with the three attitude factors. The results also indicate that the tool CAMI-S is ill adjusted for individuals with little knowledge of the Swedish care system.

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The focus of this thesis is on foreign-policy decision-making in circumstances of water scarcity. In particular the study focuses on how the issue of water has been treated in the interstate negotiations within the Peace Process between Israel and the Palestinians and Israel and Jordan. It also analyses the implementation phase. The aim of this study is to analyse why and under what conditions co-operation has taken place and how it has functioned in the water sector. As such the study moves beyond the vast quantitative material which states that transboundary water co-operation does occur by exploring why co-operation has occurred in the Jordan River Basin. Based on an overall actor-structure framework the factors deemed to be important in affecting the process and outcome are identified. The development of a shared system of norms, rules and procedures for how to manage the water resource are seen as a vital explanatory variable for the water co-operation in the Jordan River Basin. It is concluded that the water negotiations, both between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Jordan have been intimately linked to the other issues on the negotiation table. Further-more, it is concluded that water has been sub-ordinate to other politically more salient questions in the negotiations. The thesis contributes to the body of research on water in the Jordan River Basin in three ways. First, it provides and empirical overview of the implementation process of the water elements of the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan and of article 40 (which deals with water) of the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. Second, the thesis has analysed the role that scientific experts play in the water negotiations. Expert advice has been used in the negotiations and can be said to be important in that it reduces uncertainty for decision-makers as well as provide tools with which to legitimise political decisions. Third, the thesis contributes to the understanding of why the parties in the Jordan River Basin have chosen co-operative strategies rather than resorting to conflictual behaviour to handle their shared waters. Of key importance in this respect is that shared water is an interdependent resource. Thus mutual dependence on a shared resource stimulates and reinforces the need for cooperation.

I oktober 2019 bröt en serie protester ut i Libanon efter att regeringen föreslagit en skatt på den populära applikationen WhatsApp. Demonstranternas missnöje grundade sig emellertid i ekonomisk misskötsel, korruption och arbetslöshet. Trots segregation och brist på ett centralt ledarskap pågick protesterna under ett år och lyckades avsätta två premiärministrar. Detta går emot den tidigare forskning om avsekterisering och sociala rörelser, som visar att politiskt motstånd i sekteriska samhällen ofta är splittrat och ineffektivt. I denna studie undersöks protesterna utifrån ett teoretiskt ramverk som förenar teorier om decentraliserade protester och avsekteriseringsstrategier. Studien undersöker hur tre olika begrepp – sekularism, populism och nationalism – används av demonstranterna för att framföra sina budskap och krav. Studiens material består av totalt 240 demonstrantuttalanden som har samlats in från 80 tidningsartiklar och nyhetsinslag. För att undersöka begreppen tillämpar studien en kvalitativ innehållsanalys, och ett kodschema har konstruerats för att fånga in hur de tre begreppen används i demonstranternas uttalanden. Analysen visar att öppna och pluralistiska budskap kan bidra till att förena demonstranter i segregerade samhällen, och att sekularism kan vara ett effektivt begrepp för att framföra dessa budskap. Genom att förena teorier om decentraliserade protester och avsekterisering bidrar studien till att öka förståelsen om hur dessa protester kan mobiliseras och förena människor i sekteriska samhällen. Detta gör att studien inte bara bidrar till vår förståelse om Libanon, utan även liknande protester i Mellanöstern och Nordafrika.

The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the Syrian conflict by usingHistoriographical Comparative Study as a method. The study compared five different books onthe Syrian conflict. The purpose of the study is not to present "pure facts" but the main purposeis to interpret these books on how they view the Syrian conflict. In other words, how have theauthors interpreted and written about the conflict and then compare with each other. It wasnecessary to choose a theory for this work and there was nothing better than realism to explaininternational relations, and the theory was most suited to the study's problem area. The resultshowed that all the authors had different views on the study's issues, it could be found that somebooks had almost the same view while some other books had completely different views. Butall books agreed that external actors have influenced and escalated the Syrian conflict. Asrealism describes, no state sacrifices its self-interest due to moral principles. Which most of thebooks selected for this study agrees that all states involved in the Syrian conflict were due toself-interest. / Syftet med denna studie är att erbjuda en djupare förståelse av den syriska konflikten, med hjälpav Historiografisk komparativ studie som metod. Studie går på att jämföra fem olika böckersom är skrivna om den syriska konflikten. Syftet med studien är inte att presentera ”rena fakta”utan huvudsyftet är att tolka dessa böcker om hur de ser på den syriska konflikten. Alltså hurhar de tolkat och skrivit om konflikten för att kunna jämföra med varandra. Det var nödvändigtatt välja en teori för denna arbetet och det fanns inget bättre än realismen för att förklarainternationella relationer, och teorin var mest passande till studiens problemområde. Resultatetblev att alla författarna hade olika syn angående studiens frågeställningar, det kunde hittas attvissa böcker hade nästan samma syn medan vissa andra böcker hade helt olika syn. Men Allaböcker var överens om att externa aktörer har påverkat och eskalerat den syriska konflikten.Som realismen beskriver att ingen stat offrar sitt egenintresse för moraliska principer. Vilkettalar de flesta böcker som valdes till denna studie för detta påstående och är överens om att allastater som var inblandade i den syriska konflikten var på grund av sitt egenintresse.

This study aims to analyze the development of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia by examiningthree reforms dated between the years of 2011 to 2022. The reforms revolve the progressmade within the subject and are therefore relevant to our paper. Furthermore, the reforms areanalyzed from the perspective of two theories: late rentierism and liberal feminism. Themethodology in the essay aims to seek motives behind decisions made by the state, thus beingappropriate to use in our case. In the analysis we connect the found motives with the chosentheories and draw conclusions regarding how the motives can be explained by each theory.Our findings show that the progress of women’s rights in Saudi Arabia can be connected tothe theory of late rentierism, where the reforms all indicate that the state of Saudi Arabia hastheir best economic interest in mind when implementing the reforms analyzed. A certainconnection with the theory of liberal feminism can be drawn as women’s rights are legalizedto a larger extent, as well as their rights in family matters that appear to be of larger interest tothe state today.

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The My Stealthy Freedom (MSF) movement on social media has garnered over 1 million likes on Facebook and continues to make headlines in major media outlets. The founder Masih Alinejad routinely speaks out against obligatory veiling in the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). This study analyses hijab and the MSF movement from a Marxist feminist perspective, evaluating the emancipatory potential for women. The study attempts to untangle Islam from the discourses around the oppression of women to find the material roots of oppression upon which the discourse has been built. The legislation of women’s clothing and women’s bodies has a long history, with just the hijab having been made compulsory and forbidden three times in Iran within the previous century. Through the use of Multimodal Critical Discourse analysis, photographs and videos from the MSF movement are compared to hijab propaganda by the IRI to identify whether the concern of the MSF movement is limited to obligatory hijab, or if it places within the broader movement for women’s emancipation. The results show that despite the visual emphasis on the hijab, the MSF movement has a broader aim emancipating women as expressed by the activists of the movement.

The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the democratization process in the Middle East after 9/11. After 9/11 the US made a drastic change in their foreign policy towards the Middle East aiming on a “Freedom Agenda and fighting the “war on Terrorism” to ensure their national security.  Therefore, the main effort of the policy was made on democracy promotion in the Middle East in order for the Bush Administration to achieve their goals. Democracy is a widely used concept in the West describing a ruling system that secures peace and stability since it ensures the citizens all their freedoms and human rights. A definition of democracy and its arenas will be given according to the definition of Linz and Stephan with a main focus on Civil and Political Society. Lebanon will be brought up as an example of a somehow democratic Middle Easter Country. The Lebanese political system is based on confessionalism thus it is important to show how democracy is preserved within Lebanon presenting both the civil and political society within the country. The study in question shows how the US approached the region and which efforts were made in the democratization process in the Arab Middle East and it will also deal with the outcome 9/11 had on the Lebanese-US relation. The conclusion of the thesis showed that the Bush Administrations new foreign Policy faced many backlashes. Even though the US managed to overthrow the Taliban’s and remove Saddam’s Regime, the policy’s main goal of achieving democracy in the Middle East was not successful. In the case of Lebanon the research concludes that to achieve a successful democratic policy the Lebanese strong confessional structures must be combined with the fundamentals of democracy. It further showed that there has not been a drastic change in the Lebanese-US relation due to 9/11.