No description available.

There has been an ongoing and noticed conflict in Sweden, between 2006-2019, regarding the opposite interests in an area called ”Ojnareskogen” (The forest of Ojnare), located in the north of Gotland, a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea. The site has high nature values and borders a protected conservation area, but there is also an interest in the site to be mined for limestone. Through an anthropological perspective, I have analysed the conflict using a trans-disciplinary theory within anthropology, called political ecology, particularly the perspective called political ontology. The conflict is discussed through the several actors that are involved, in addition to governmental institutions and the mining company, ENGO’s and grassroots movements have engaged. I will also pay attention to the conflict against the background of the increasing environmental awareness in today's society expressed in the term Anthropocene. In this context and regarding the ontological turn emphasis on non-human agents, I bring forward a previously invisible actor - the forest itself. / Mellan åren 2006–2019 pågick en uppmärksammad miljökonflikt på Gotland som gällde tillstånd för brytning av kalksten i området Ojnareskogen, ett område med höga naturvärden och angränsande naturskyddsområden. Förutom gruvbolaget och statliga aktörer engagerade sig icke-statliga miljöorganisationer och gräsrotsrörelser. I uppsatsen analyseras aktörerna och deras ställningstaganden med utgångspunkt i det antropologiska forskningsfältet politisk ekologi, särskilt det perspektiv som kommit att kallas politisk ontologi. Jag kommer även att sätta konflikten i relation till den ökade medvetenheten i samhället om naturens sårbarhet som aktualiserats genom antropocen. I den kontexten och med den ontologiska vändningens betoning av att även icke mänsklig agens bör höras, vill jag föra fram en tidigare osynlig aktör – skogen själv.

Social media has changed how political communication is distributed (Häussler, 2021) and has led to party leaders’ using the platforms to create an image of themselves as ordinary individuals (Bărbieru, 2020). Ahead of the 2022 election, social media is expected to play a more prominent role, with it being the source of choice for first-time voters (Internetstiftelsen, 2022). Today voters are also said to identify themselves more with the political candidate than the party (Bjerling, 2012) which makes it relevant to study party leaders’ usage of personalisation on social media. The purpose of this study is to examine how young adults perceive and create meaning around Swedish party leaders' self-construction through personalisation on Instagram by combining semi-structured interviews and reception analysis to be able to understand the phenomenon of party leaders’ personalisation on social media through the interviewees perspective. Drawing on theories of Political Impression Management, Impression Management and Parasocial Relations. By examining how the biggest users of social media, young adults (Internetstiftelsen, 2021; 2022), perceive and create meaning around party leaders' self-construction through personalisation on social media, it can show how the party leaders are perceived and if the interviewees perceive the self-construction to be genuine. Eight interviews with young adults between the ages of 21 to 28 years old have been conducted and the material from the interviews has been coded and thematised in NVivo 12.  The results show that self-construction is perceived to be visible when the party leaders show that they are one of the people. The images were interpreted to be genuine through the party leaders sharing their everyday life, this also indicated if the party leader could impact their audience. The conclusion of the study is that self-construction can be visible through the party leaders' usage of relatable aspects to be perceived as one of the people. In this particular study, it could be divided into three main parts: nature, family and selfies. The interviewees perceive Swedish party leaders’ self-construction through personalisation on Instagram to be genuine if it reflected on the party leaders’ everyday life and their spare time outside of politics. If the image was a selfie it was increasingly more perceived as genuine. Even though the reception material was from the party leaders' self-construction through personalisation, it cannot determine if it represents the party leaders’ personal life, or them outside of politics. With all images being perceived by the interviewees as positive for the party leader. / Sociala medier har förändrat hur politisk kommunikation distribueras (Häussler, 2021) och har lett till att partiledarna använder sig av plattformarna för att kunna skapa en bild av sig själva som vanliga individer (Bărbieru, 2020). Inför valet 2022, förväntas sociala medier spela en mer framträdande roll då det är den källan förstagångsväljare i allra första hand väljer (Internetstiftelsen 2022). Idag sägs även väljare identifiera sig mer med den politiska kandidaten än partiet själv (Bjerling, 2012) vilket gör det relevant att studera partiledares användning av personalisering på sociala medier. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur unga vuxna uppfattar och skapar mening kring svenska partiledares framställning genom personalisering på Instagram genom att kombinera semistrukturerade intervjuer och en receptionsanalys för att förstå fenomenet av partiledares personalisering på sociala medier från intervjupersonernas perspektiv. Samt utgå från teorier om Political Impression Management, Impression Management och Parasocial Relations. Genom att undersöka hur de största användarna av sociala medier, unga vuxna (Internetstiftelsen, 2021; 2022), uppfattar och skapar mening kring partiledares framställning genom personalisering på sociala medier, kan det visa hur partiledarna uppfattas och om intervjupersonerna uppfattar att framställningen är genuin. Åtta intervjuer med unga vuxna mellan 21 och 28 år har genomförts och materialet från intervjuerna har kodats och tematiseras i NVivo 12.  Resultatet visar att framställning uppfattas vara synligt när partiledarna visar att dem är en av befolkningen. Bilderna uppfattades vara genuina genom att partiledarna delade med sig av sin vardag, detta indikerade också på om partiledaren kunde påverka sin publik. Slutsatsen för studien är att personlig framställning kan vara synlig när partiledarna använder sig av relaterbara aspekter för att uppfattas som en i befolkningen. För denna specifika studie kan de delas in i tre huvudsakliga delar: natur, familj och selfies. Intervjupersonerna uppfattar svenska partiledares framställning genom personalisering på Instagram att vara genuin när det reflekterade partiledarnas vardagliga liv och deras fritid utanför politiken. Om bilden var en selfie ökade uppfattningen att den var genuin. Även om receptions materialet var från partiledarnas personliga framställning så kan det inte fastställas att det representerar partiledarnas privatliv eller hur dem är utanför politiken. Då intervjupersonerna uppfattade alla bilder att vara positiva för partiledarna.

This essay will examine the inauguration speech of Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. The aim is to analyze how political psychology can affect the design of the speeches and how globalization and nationalism can help understand what they really say in their speeches and what underlaying messages might be found. By doing qualitative ideational analyzes of the speeches, it is found that political psychology may affect the design of the speeches regarding the presidents’ personal backgrounds and the aim to create emotions with the citizens. Globalization and nationalism can be found in different ways in each president’s inauguration speech.

Denna studie syftar till att undersöka bioregionalism i relation till urbanisering och globalisering för att identifiera utmaningar som begreppet och rörelsen möter relaterat till dessa trender. Tidigare studier på forskningsfältet är begränsat och utspritt, vilket skapar ett behov av att samla och vidareutveckla det fragmenterade material som finns på området. Studien har genomförts genom en metodtriangulering av kvalitativa metoder i form av litteraturstudie och enkätstudie. Den första metoden syftar till att redogöra för ett vetenskapligt och akademiskt perspektiv medan den andra metoden redogör för ett gräsrotsperspektiv. De två metoderna integrerades sedan i en gemensam diskussion för att ge en mer representativ och heltäckande bild av vilka utmaningar bioregionalismen möter relaterat till trenderna. Resultatet visar att de största utmaningarna för bioregionalismen är att lyckas åstadkomma en kulturell förändring och att få det bioregionala paradigmet erkänt. De största svårigheterna ligger i den pågående dialektiken mellan urban/rural respektive lokal/global. Avslutningsvis konstateras att bioregionalismen i sin ursprungliga form inte är tillräcklig för att förstoras upp på en urban och global skala. För att omfamna dessa trender skulle bioregionalismen förslagsvis behöva utveckla de bioregionala idealen och synkroniseras med andra närliggande koncept. / This thesis aims to investigate bioregionalism in relation to urbanization and globalization to identify challenges that are facing the concept and the social movement related to these trends. Previous studies in this research field is limited and scattered, creating a need to collect and further develop the fragmented material in the area. The study was conducted through a triangulation of qualitative methods in terms of literature study and survey study. The first method aims to describe a scientific and academic perspective, while the second method describes a grassroots perspective. The two methods were then integrated in a joint discussion to provide a further representative and comprehensive picture of the challenges facing bioregionalism regarding the trends. The results show that the greatest challenges for bioregionalism are to succeed in achieving a cultural change and of getting the bioregional paradigm recognized. The greatest difficulty lies with the ongoing dialectic interplay between urban/rural and local/global. Finally the study concludes that bioregionalism in its original form is not sufficient enough to be scaled up to an urban and global level. To embrace urbanization and globalization, bioregionalism would tentatively need to develop its bioregional ideals and be synchronized with other adjacent concepts.

This study deals with the quality of democracy, and its purpose is to examine which factors affect the varying levels of the quality of democracy in the stable democracies in the world. The research question posited in the study is: what explains the varying levels of the quality of democracy in the democratic countries in the world, and do political institutions matter? Theoretically, the quality of democracy is distinguished from other similar concepts employed in comparative politics, and what the quality of democracy stands for is clarified. The quality of democracy is defined in this study as: the level of legitimacy in a democratic system with respect to democratic norms such as political participation, political competition, political equality, and rule of law. In total, four dimensions of the quality of democracy are included that are considered to be very important dimensions of the quality of democracy. These dimensions are political participation, political competition, political equality, and the rule of law. To explain the variation in the quality of democracy, an explanatory model has been developed. The explanatory model consists of five different groups of independent variables: political institutional variables, socioeconomic variables, cultural variables, historical variables, and physical variables. Methodologically, a large-n, outcome-centric research design is employed and statistical analysis is used to examine what effect the five groups of independent variables have on the four dimensions of the quality of democracy. Empirically, the results show that cultural variables and political institutional variables outperform socioeconomic, historical, and physical variables in relation to their effect on the quality of democracy. Consequently, cultural and political institutional variables are the two most important groups of variables when explaining the variation in the quality of democracy in the democratic countries in the world. In relation to the other groups of variables, historical variables are slightly more important than socioeconomic variables when explaining the variation in the quality of democracy. The physical variables constitute the group of variables that has the least importance out of the five groups of variables when explaining the variation in the quality of democracy. In summary, the findings from the study show that the best way of increasing the level of the quality of democracy may be to choose political institutions such as parliamentarism as the executive power system and a proportional system as the electoral system. To put this clearly, to increase the possibility of democratic countries achieving a high level of the quality of democracy they should avoid majority electoral systems and presidential or semipresidential executive systems.

Problem statement and purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze in what way first-time voters chose to take part of political information. The questions we aimed to answer was how first-time voters use media and other information channels for political purposes, what importance and trust the first-time voters give the different information channels and finally which indicators there is for that structural or individual factors affect the media consumption and political interest. Method and material: We did interviews with twelve 18 years old first-time voters from six different high school programs in Sundsvall, Sweden. Results: The study showed that the premier source of political information were traditional news media, in particular the debates on TV. It’s also in the debates the first-time voter’s trust the most. Even though the social medias are constantly present in their everyday life and even though the first-time voters believe the social medias have potential for engaging young people politically, the possibilities are only taken in advantage by people who are already politically interested. The first-time voters are being affected by both structural and individualized factors. The structural, the social standing in particular, matters for the individual’s political interest and use of traditional media, while the individualized factors primarily matters for the use of social medias.

No description available.

Abstract   Essay in political science, C-level, by Patrik Larsson, autumn semester 2007. Tutor: Susan Marton   The battle over the agenda- Can media be regarded as an individual political actor?   The purpose of this essay is to study to what extent media can be regarded to function as an individual political actor. In other words, do the media have more power over the political agenda than the politicians and do the media influence how the politicians make their decisions.   This research is a case study and to be able to complete the intention of this study I have used Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaws theory, the agenda-setting theory. From this theory I have used four aspects to analyse my material which has consisted of editorials from a Swedish newspaper, interpellations and debates that belong to the interpellations. The aspect I have worked with are, how the problem is defined, who is responsible for the problem, what values and which solutions are expressed.  I have used a qualitative text analysis as my methodological approach which means that the results of my study are my interpretation of the material.   My conclusions are that the media in this case shouldn’t be regarded as an individual political actor because there is no tendency that shows that the media has influenced the government in their decisions concerning the real-estate tax. This means that the media doesn’t have more power over the political agenda. There are tendencies that show a connection between the media and the opposition, so there is possibility that the media can influence the political agenda by making the questions appear on the political agenda which means that the media have the power to influence the political agenda rather than the power over it.

Denna uppsats analyserar två tal av Sveriges statsminister Stefan Löfven; det ena från Socialdemokraternas partikongress 2015 och det andra från Almedalen samma år. Syftet är att ge en inblick i hur visioner för framtiden uttrycks av en samtida högt uppsatt politiker och att undersöka om det finns några skillnader i hur dessa visioner uttrycks beroende på om talaren i första hand vänder sig till sitt eget parti eller till en bredare opinion. Uppsatsen lyfter fram tre olika aspekter av politiska visioner (praktiska, utopiska och imaginära) och analyserar talen med fokus på dessa. Detta kombineras med en retorisk situationsanalys som syftar till att belysa och förklara skillnader i hur visionerna uttrycks i de två talen. Resultatet visar att de visioner som Löfven uttrycker i båda talen lägger ett större fokus på att lösa omedelbara praktiska problem än att bygga ett framtida samhälle. Det framkommer även att talet från partikongressen mer tydligt kopplar visionerna till socialdemokratin som ideologi än vad talet i Almedalen gör. / This thesis analyses two speeches by the Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven; one from the Swedish Social Dmocratic Party's congress in 2015 and the other from Almedalen week the same year. The purpose is to provide insight into how visions for the future are expressed by a contemporary high-profile politician and to explore if there are any differences in how these visions are expressed depending on whether the speaker is primarily adressing his own party or a broader public. The thesis features three different aspects of political vision (practical, utopian and imaginary) and anyses the speeches focusing on these. This is combined with an analysis of the rhetorical situations, intended to highlight and explain differences in how the visions are expressed in the two speeches. The results show that the visions expressed by Löfven in both speeches tends to focus more on solving immediate problems than buildning a future society. The thesis also reveals that the speech from the congress connects the expressed visions to social democratic ideology more clearly than the speech from Almedalen Week does.