<p><p><em><strong>”Have the young members’ of Save the Children Sweden got increased possibilities to influence the organization since the founding of the youth-organization?” </strong></em></p><p>The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if the founding of a youth-organization by Save the Children Sweden has led to increased possibility for the young members to influence the organization. I have two research assignments; change since the founding of a youth-organization? politically since the foundation of a youth-organization and how?</p>Did the norms and values in the organizationand Did the organization change I have analyzed protocols from the general assembly between 1997 and 2008 and how the rules in the organization have changed over time. I have also interviewed four board members to get a more diversified view of how the board meetings proceed. To interpret the findings in the analysis I have used two organization theories, result is that the young members of the organization have got increased possibilities to influence the organization. Not mainly because they have five representatives in the general assembly and one representative in the committee, but because they are more visible now than they were before the founding of the youth-organization when they where only private members.</p>

This essay has the ambition to examine and compare Croatia’s and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s development towards a consolidated democracy. By applying Linz &amp; Stepen’s theory on how to consolidate a democracy and put focus on political society, behavioral patterns, attitude and constitutional structure the purpose is to find similarities and differences between Bosnia and Croatia within this field. The focus of this study is to compare two similar countries that have developed in very different ways. By applying the theory and a comparative method the purpose is to examine why two so similar countries with so much in common have developed in so different ways? In order to better answer the question there are two part questions and these are: What difficulties, concerning consolidation of democracy, have Croatia and Bosnia faced since the democratic transition in the beginning of the 1990s? What similarities and differences in the area of democratic consolidation (with focus on political society, behavioral patterns, attitude and constitutional structure) are there between the two countries? As the analysis shows, the main reason why these two countries differ so much is that Bosnia is a divided country with different nationalities and each nationality only wants to realize its own interest and does not care about what is best for the country as an entity. However, Croatia has recently realized that democracy is the best for the country and its development.

Uppsatsen behandlar några av de aktörer inom konsten som finns i Örebro kommun, deras målsättningar och verklighet. Detta ställs i relation till betraktaren. Frågorna som behandlas och besvaras är vilka aktörer som jobbar med att nå ut till mottagaren; vilka är målsättningarna; hur jobbar de med att genomdriva sina mål; hur ser framtiden och visionen ut; hur kan man ställa detta i förhållande till betraktaren? Den teoretiska grunden för betraktarens förutsättningar finns i perceptionsteori, samt sociologen Pierre Bourdieu. Ekonomiska förutsättningar presenteras kort. Aktörerna som har intervjuats, samt deras verksamhet, presenteras och sedan följer intervjuer med respektive informant. Slutligen behandlas uppsatsens frågeställningar utifrån den grund som materialet har gett och en slutdiskussion förs.

On the first of January 2012, a new public authority was formed in Värmland, due to a new legislation on public transport. The first task for the new public authority was to produce a plan for the development of public transport. In order to do so, it had to execute an extensive consultation process about the long-term goals of public transport. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate how a public authority can use a consultation process as a means to clarify accountability and produce unified goals. To answer that, I have done a case study about how the new regional public authority in Värmland for public transport has acted in the process of writing a plan for the development of public transport. The research assignment is: What role did the consultation process have in the task of building a new organisation for Public Transport in Värmland? I proceeded from an institutional perspective, clarified by Clarence Stone’s Urban regime theory. 20 persons where interviewed in the study, both participants in the process and representatives of the new public authority. I have also studied the outcome of the process (the plan for the development of public transport), protocols and agreements that influence the process. The result of the study is that the consultation process has had three roles in the task of building a new organisation for public transport in Värmland; To inform about the new organisation, gather input and to discuss the result of the process.

The purpose of this study is to determine if and how municipal consultative entities through influence may affect the legitimacy of the Swedish democratic model. The study aims to do this through analysing the opportunities for influence present with the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality, to determine how the councils may affect political participation and the role of elected representatives. To do so, the study asks the following primary research question: "What requisites for influence are present for participants of municipal consultative entities, as found for the representatives of the youth and the retired within the framework of their participation in the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality?" The study answers this research question by dividing it into one question of policy and one question of democratic perspective, and investigating these matters through nine snowballing interviews with the decision makers, organisational actors and participants of the councils. The information from the interviews is then analysed per council through a framework of democracy theory, policy process theory and organisation theory. In a final step, the results from these analyses are compared to each other to determine common and disparate traits within the policies and dominant democratic perspectives of the councils. The primary findings of the study suggest that the success of a policy in this context, and the requisites for influence, are largely determined by how standardised and traceable the paths of communication between the decision makers and the participants are. It further finds that the democratic perspective among the primary decision makers appears largely congruent with the ideal of representative democracy. This, in turn, means that municipal consultative entities have the potential to either encourage or discourage participation (and thereby strengthening or weakening the legitimacy) within the Swedish democratic model depending on whether or not they are perceived to gain real influence. At the same time, the municipal consultative entities do not appear to undermine the role of elected representatives.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka om betydelsen av socialt kapital skiljer sig åt mellan olika former av politiskt deltagande. Med olika former av deltagande avses dels att rösta, vilket här benämns passivt deltagande, och andra mer aktiva former såsom att demonstrera eller kontakta en politiker. Socialt kapital definieras i termer av nätverk och tillit. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten är att tillgång till nätverk bland annat ökar sannolikheten att bli tillfrågad om att delta i aktiviteter, medan tillgång till tillit tycks öka en individs benägenhet att offra av sin egen tid för det gemensammas bästa. Datamaterialet som används är den svenska delen av European Social Survey från 2002. Logistisk regressionsanalys visar att tillgång till formellt nätverk är förknippad med en högre sannolikhet för både aktivt och passivt politiskt deltagande, medan tillgång till informellt nätverk inte är relaterat till politiskt deltagande. Vidare är hög tillit till rättsväsendet förenat med en mindre benägenhet till aktivt deltagande, medan hög tillit till politiker är positivt relaterat till aktivt deltagande. För passivt deltagande är hög tillit till riksdagen förknippad med en större sannolikhet till deltagande. Som uppslag till fortsatt forskning diskuteras bland annat varför nätverk tycks påverka deltagande, och hur tillit kan verka i relation till nätverk. Även vikten av att separera olika delar av det sociala kapitalet och studera vilken effekt var och en av dessa har förs fram.

Studies have shown that politicians are significantly more likely to become victims of violent crime than other citizens in Sweden. In fact increasing political rank and engagement are directly proportionate to increased risk for violence. Threat towards politicians is not only dangerous to the individuals involved but also to the democratic system as a whole. Political scientists the world over have done a lot of research on democracy, but I have been unable to find a single method or theory that examines how violence, threat and harassment affect political leaders and democratic systems. The aim of this study is to expand the existing model made by Tommy Möller, professor in political science. In his model he presents 11 factors that affect political leaders ability to act. My aim is to develop his model by adding a 12 th factor “violence, threat and harassment”. To fulfill the aim of the study I have analyzed texts and interviews with political leaders to discover if and how violence, threat and harassment affect them in their role as political leaders. My analysis showed that all of the interviewed political leaders had been affected by this, but on different levels. Some of them were only affected personally, some of them were affected both personally and professionally and some were only affected professionally. On a personal level they becomes more emotionally cold, jaded and chastened. Some of the leaders questioned their motivation to continue their mission as politician. On a professional level it was common to “self censure” by avoiding contemporary blogs and debates on subjects they had marked as “sensitive”,. The interviews combined with the other information and reports (analysis of texts) support the conclusion that it useful to add a 12 th factor to Tommy Möllers model in the studied case. The name of the thesis is “Threat, violence &amp; harassments – A study of limitations of political leadership and democracy”. This thesis is a final assignment for Bachelor degree in political science.

The present essay concerns the Levinasian understanding of responsibility in relation to the two spheres that Levinas introduces in his second major work Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, namely the Saying and the Said. The essay investigates some of the different meanings that the concept responsibility takes on in regard to these two spheres, and thus also in regard to the separation between the ethical and the political that is apparent in the book. Is it possible to find a politically uttered responsibility in Levinas Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence? The essay wants to emphasize the continuous transition between the ethical or the Saying and the political or the Said, and vice versa, with the purpose of showing how the two spheres may be conceived simultaneously. By posing the relationship between the two as a reciprocal rather than a oppositional one, the essay aims to suggest that an understanding of responsibility at once must be ethical and political. In order to show this, the essay analyses responsibility as communication, sensibility and exposure. Thereafter, it turns to Judith Butler's Giving an Account of Oneself to offer an ethical/political reading of responsibility as the subjectivity of the subject. Levinas' concepts of the Trace, the Third Party and the question of Justice is discussed, using Jacques Derrida's Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas, Bettina Bergo's Levinas Between the Ethical and the Political, and Howard Caygill's Levinas and the Political. The essay poses the question of how we are to discuss responsibility if its original, ethical meaning is undone at the very moment that we try to grasp it.  Therefore what Levinas calls the philosophical reduction of the Said is taken in consideration.

This thesis compares political participation by the public through the Swedish Parliamentary Ombudsman (PO) and the German Petitions Committee of the Bundestag (PC). Through studies of literature and statistics I examine how citizens can participate through the institutions, how frequently they do and the likelihood of sparking a debate while participating. Using media theories as well as theories of participatory and representative democracy I study how citizens can use these institutions for purposes of control and proposition. Both institutions deal with complaints but the PC also deals with propositions for legislation, making the institution more versatile. The PO deals with more cases than the PC and has more far-reaching competences and areas of inspection, although neither institution has binding decisions. Thus the direct advantage for citizens using the institutions is the chance of reaching out to media and the public through freedom of information laws and the German online petition forum. The PC to a larger extent fits the representative model while the PO in some respects is more a legal than a political institution, being managed by lawyers instead of MPs. Neither institution meets the ideals of participatory politics although the German official petition is closer to it.

Diss. Uppsala : Univ., 2004.