This thesis purpose has been to investigate how the demonetisation in India has affected the political participation and the rural identity in a rural part of Karnataka. The demonetisation in this thesis has been connected to globalisation and show how the globalisation expresses on the rural locality. This has been done by a field study in a rural part of Karnataka that contained direct observations and six focus-group interviews that has been analysed with qualitative methodology. The rural identity has been operationalised to three indicators; caste-identity, family and gender-identity and political-identity. Our results shows that the rural identity has been somewhat affected by the demonetisation and globalisation. The political participation has not been affected. However there are tendencies that the demonetisation might transform the political participation in the future. Our findings also suggest that the urban have moved further away from the rural towards the global due to the demonetisation. Due to the increased distance between the rural and urban, the rural identity has become more independent.

Why engage if it risks your life? Motives to participation in labour unions among women in Colombia Essay in Political Science D-level Author: Susanna Svensson Tutor: Hans Lödén Why do people choose to participate in politics when it is such a small chance that you actually make a change? Also political participation favours the collective and therefore you do not get any personal advantages for your contribution. Even more interesting is the question of why you participate when it puts yourself in a position of danger? Colombia is considered to be the most dangerous country to be a member of labour unions in and it would therefore be a context where it is unlikely to find participation. This study is based on thirteen qualitative interviews with Colombian female union members with the aim to understand why people engage in labour unions despite threats of violence and other obstacles, when the most likely would be to abstain from action. The overall research question is: Why do women in Colombia participate in labour unions in spite of violence or threats of violence and other obstacles? The study is framed by the attribution theory. The attribution theory is used to explain why people act as they do and states that there are both external and internal attributions as well as stable and unstable. The theory has been used to set up research question, an interview template, and to analyse the material. The most of the interviewed persons had been violated because of there activism in labour unions. Many of them had been threatened to their lives. The study finds that their beliefs in rights and equality are crucial to explain why they participate in union activism. So is their environment in which they grew up. Moreover, the social life and the international support that the unions provides is also important for their engagement.

Abstract The political parties in Sweden are losing members. This is seen as a problem because the political parties are the base and the recruiting ground for members to decision-making bodies. Social movements are seen as a place where people with a modest background could express their opinions and also learn the political process. These movements have also lost members during the last decades and this could seriously affect the representation of lower social groups among the decision-makers. This essay emanates from Robert D. Putnam’s theory of the importance of a strong civil society and social capital for democracy and a fair social representation in governing bodies. The goal with this essay was to examine if people with background in social-movements was over-represented in decision-making bodies and if their experiences from those organization had been important for them in their role in decision-making bodies. The conclusion was that there was no over-representation of people with background in social movements compared to Sweden in general. Experiences from earlier engagement in social movements seem to have been more important for the group with low socioeconomic status but this connection cannot be said to be general. Keywords: social capital, civil society, social movements, socioeconomic status

The purpose of this study is to examine how upper secondary school teachers within the social studies subject interpret and transform the mission of preparing students for political participation. Based on teachers' dictums of how the mission is interpreted and transformed ahead of teaching, as well as which factors are expressed to affect this transformation, the study aims to determine what differences exist regarding how the mission is transformed and what can be seen to cause these differences. Through semi-structured interviews with seven social studies teachers, the study aims to answer three research questions addressing how the teachers interpret the mission, their expressions of how the mission is transformed ahead of teaching as well as which factors are mentioned to affect this transformation. The general conclusion of the study is that the teachers express that the mission of preparing students for political participation contain several contrasting dimensions, which in various ways are transformed ahead of teaching. The most central differences can be seen within the knowledge conveying and participation promoting dimensions, where the variations appear as the teachers to a certain extent focus on different areas of teaching and attend to these on different levels. Furthermore, different possibilities of influence and forms of participation are accentuated to various extent. To conclude, the study indicates that the teachers, qua agents of political socialisation, are preparing the students dissimilarly for political participation. / Syftet med föreliggande studie är att undersöka hur gymnasielärare i samhällskunskap tolkar och transformerar skolans uppdrag att förbereda elever för politiskt deltagande. Utifrån lärares utsagor kring hur uppdraget tolkas och transformeras inför samhällskunskapsundervisning, samt vilka faktorer som uttrycks påverka denna transformering, syftar studien till att utröna vilka skillnader som föreligger beträffande hur uppdraget transformeras, samt vad dessa skillnader kan ses bero på. Genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju samhällskunskapslärare, syftar studien till att besvara tre forskningsfrågor, vilka behandlar hur lärarna tolkar uppdraget att förbereda elever för politiskt deltagande, hur de uttrycker att uppdraget transformeras inför undervisning samt vilka faktorer som uttrycks påverka denna transformering. Studiens övergripande slutsats är att lärarna ger uttryck för att uppdraget att förbereda eleverna för politiskt deltagande inbegriper flera olika dimensioner, vilka transformeras på olika sätt inför undervisning. De mest centrala skillnaderna kan ses finnas inom de kunskapsförmedlande och deltagarfrämjande dimensionerna, vilket yttrar sig genom att lärarna i viss mån fokuserar på olika undervisningsområden och behandlar dessa på olika nivåer. Vidare framhävs olika påverkansmöjligheter och deltagandeformer i varierande grad. Sammanfattningsvis indikerar studien att lärarna, i egenskap av politiska socialisationsagenter, förbereder eleverna olika för politiskt deltagande.

No description available.

This thesis is a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews that were conducted with six highly educated young second-generation immigrants from the deprived neighborhood of Bäckby in Västerås. By aiming to understand how the participants portray their substantive citizenship and its impact upon political participation as an essential pillar of Swedish democracy, the author focused upon how the participants described their perceived discrimination, sense of belonging, transnationalism, and political participation. The answers were transcribed using the intelligent verbatim method and coded deductively based on a wide range of relevant literature. Among many findings, the study showed that the participants were aware of the bright barrier framing their place of comfort as well as they were highly attached to Bäckby. However, the majority of the participants considered the homeland to be a country outside of Sweden. Peregrinus citizenship was the outcome of the author's interpretations of the participants' substantive citizenship, which also was a possible explanation of the low interest in politics that the participants illustrated through their answers. Among the study's conclusions was stated that the second-generation immigrants are not only a risk group because of social risk factors present within the deprived neighborhood, but also because of the similar factors present outside of it. / Det här examensarbete är en kvalitativ studie baserad på semistrukturerade intervjuer som genomfördes med sex högutbildade unga andra generationens invandrare från den eftersatta stadsdelen Bäckby i Västerås. Genom att försöka förstå hur deltagarna framställer sitt substantivmedborgarskap och dess inverkan på det politiska deltagandet som en viktig pelare i den svenska demokratin fokuserade författaren på hur deltagarna beskrev sin upplevda diskriminering, känsla av tillhörighet, transnationalism och politiskt deltagande. Svaren transkriberades med hjälp av den intelligenta Verbatim metoden och kodade deduktivt baserat på ett brett spektrum av relevant litteratur. Bland många fynd visade studien att deltagarna var medvetna om den ljusa barriären som inramade sin komfortplats och de var mycket fästa vid Bäckby. Majoriteten av deltagarna ansåg dock att hemlandet var ett land utanför Sverige. Peregrinus medborgarskap var resultatet av författarens tolkningar av deltagarnas substantivmedborgarskap, vilket också var en möjlig förklaring till det låga intresse för politik som deltagarna illustrerade genom sina svar. Bland studiens slutsatser uppgavs att andra generationens invandrare är inte bara en riskgrupp på grund av sociala riskfaktorer som finns inom det utsatta området, utan också på grund av liknande faktorer som finns utanför det.

Denna uppsats handlar om människors inflytande i kommunal planeringoch hur detta har påverkats av covid-19 pandemin. Frågan är viktig ur ett större perspektiv då förutsättningarna för ett socialt hållbart samhälle bygger på jämställdhet, jämlikhet och delaktighet i samhällets utveckling, vilket kan påverkas av pandemins restriktioner. Genom att kartlägga hur planeringsförvaltning på tre olika stora kommuner har förändrat sitt arbete med medborgardialoger under pandemin vill man förstå hur förändringarna har påverkat kommunikationen mellan planeringsförvaltning och medborgare. Insamling av empiri har skett via kvalitativa intervjuer där informanterna arbeter i direkt anknytning till planeringsprocesser på förvaltning och besitter kunskap och erfarenhet inom uppsatsens ämne. Resultatet av uppsatsen visar att samtliga planeringsförvaltningar har ställt om till ett helt digitalt arbeter i kommunikationen med medborgarna, detta har både positiva och negativa konsekvenser. Digitalt skapas mer flexibla och tidseffektiva möten, det öppnar upp för ett ökat deltagande framförallt hos yngre, samtidigt som det också skapar begränsningar för äldre och de som inte talar språket, det är också svårare att få in synpunkter från medborgarna över digitala möten. Fullständig digitalisering av dialogen med medborgarna tenderar till en ökad risk för envägskommunikation samt att vissa grupper exkluderas från deltagandet. / This essay is about people´s influence in municipal planning and how this has been affected by covid-19 pandemic. The issue is important from a larger prespective as the conditions for a socially sustainable society, builds on equality and participation in development of society, which can be affected by the restrictions of a pandemic. By analyzing how planning administration in three diffrent large municipalities has changed its work with citizen dialogues during the pandemic, they want to understand how the changes have affected the communication between planning administration and citizens. Empirical data collection has been done by qualitative inrerviews. Interviewees all works as civil servants with knowledge and experience in the field of municipal development and processes connected to it. Analysis in this essay indicates that all interviewed administrations have adapted digital platforms for communicating with citizens, resulting in both positive and negative factors. Digital platforms create flexible and efficient meetings, which opens up for increased participation, especially among younger people. At the same time as it also creates restrictions for the elderly and those who do not speak the language. It is also more difficult to get views from citizens during digital meetings, which can affect representativeness. Compared to physical meetings digital meetings generate less citizen input. Complete digitalization of the citizen dialogue tends to increase the risk of one-way communication and to exclude certain groups from participation.

Sweden is a member of the European Union and Sweden’s turn-out in the elections to the European Parliament is low compared to its own national elections. Earlier research in the field of didactics in civics regarding the EU have mostly focused on aspects of civic education such as which subject content teachers teach and what knowledge they test their students on. Even today, textbooks are an important part of shaping education. This study has focused on how the EU is presented in textbooks for civics in Swedish upper secondary school, specifically the course “Samhällskunskap 1b”. The aim was to research the political knowledge about the EU presented in textbooks and research how the presented political knowledge can contribute to political participation.  The study utilizes two different theories, the first is Maria Jarl’s definition of the participatory democratic process and the second is a categorical instrument constructed by Peter Wall used to analyze political knowledge. The method used is both a qualitative content analysis and a comparative analysis. The categorical instrument used stipulates that political knowledge contains three dimensions, polity, policy, and politics. Each dimension has several variable categories attached.  In the study, four textbooks written for the civics course “Samhällskunskap 1b” were analyzed, in accordance with the developed methodological framework. The results of the study found that each of the textbooks contained all three dimensions of political knowledge. However, the dimensions were not equally present in the content with an imbalance favoring the polity dimension which encompassed more than half of the observed variable categories in each of the textbooks. The politics dimension was also found to be relatively non-existent in each of the textbooks with coverage as low as 2% in one of the textbooks. Thus, the conclusion is that the political knowledge regarding the EU in the textbooks is far too one-sided to provide a satisfactory contribution to political participation. We also confirm that a similar focus on the polity dimension regarding the EU exists in textbooks which can also be found in the content teachers teach. This might have several implications for future political participants in Sweden and thus also Swedish democracy.

Where does my individual responsibility for the environment start and end? Should I be responsible for environmental stress in India only because my shoes were produced there, or for climate change that endangers species in Antarctica, or rising sea levels on Pacific islands which just might have been caused by my driving? What do I need to do if I think it is my responsibility? And how do I decide which is a better alternative from an environmental point of view? Who should I trust when deciding on what action to take, and what opportunities do I need for acting?This multidisciplinary thesis takes the politicization of everyday household activities due to environmental consequences, and individualization of responsibility, as its starting points. These points make it increasingly important to understand what responsibility individuals experience, and how they act in accordance with these perceptions. The present thesis is a qualitative study with 28 Swedish households that concern how the householders express responsibility for the environment through their everyday activities, partly by claiming to be “environmentally conscious”, and how they attempt to exert political influence. The study contributes to the discussion on the wide field of sustainable development and environmental politics. It deals specifically with the ways four Swedish municipalities (Gothenburg, Huddinge, Piteå and Växjö) attempt to influence what the householders do in the private sphere when it comes to implementing sustainable development, and what opportunities and they supply, and what expectations they have on householders. The study thereby discusses the possibility to interfere in the perceived private sphere, and different ways to participate politically. / Sustainable households: activities, research, policies

Sociologen Colin Crouch beskrev i sin bok ”Post-democracy” från 2004 om en demokrati i förändring, i rörelse bort från den dialogen mellan samhällsaktörer som demokratin tidigare byggt på, för att i ett postmodernt samhälle istället hamna i händerna på en politisk- och företagselit. Denna kvalitativa fallstudie tar sin ansats i begreppet postdemokrati för att studera datainsamlingen av samspelet mellan svenska staten, spelbolag och andra aktörer kring genomförandet av en ny spellag som började gälla i Sverige 1 januari 2019. Studiens syfte var att undersöka om, och i så fall på vilket sätt, empirin kunde ses som ett exempel på postdemokratiska processer i svensk politik. Processen mellan aktörerna belystes genom en granskning av dokument upprättade av regering, riksdag och dess myndigheter, spelbolagen, representanter för spelberoende, spelforskning samt medierapportering. Studien genomfördes med utgångspunkt i Colin Crouchs beskrivning av postdemokrati inom företagande, politik och medborgarskap samt statsvetaren Chantal Mouffes begrepp om ”politik” och ”det politiska”. Resultatanalysen visar på att delar av beslutsprocessen och efterspelet kan benämnas som postdemokratiska, samt att den bedrivna politiken utgår enligt Mouffes definition mer från de demokratiska principerna som handlar om frihet snarare än om jämlikhet. / Colin Crouch wrote in his book Post - democracy (2004) about democracy in crisis, the dialogue in the society was no longer between the citizens and politicians, but on its way back to the hands of the politics and business elite. This qualitative case study takes position in the concept post-democracy to study the interaction between the Swedish state, gambling companies and other actors, when the implementation of a new law regarding gambling began to apply as a law in Sweden 1 January 2019. The aim of the study was to investigate whether, and if so in what way, the data collection could be seen as an example of post-democratic processes in Swedish politics. The process between the actors is highlighted by a review of documents drawn up by the government, parliament and its authorities, bookmakers, representatives of gambling addiction, gambling research and media reporting. The study was carried out on the basis of Colin Crouch's description of post-democracy in business, politics and citizenship, as well as political scientist Chantal Mouffe's concept of "politics” and "the political". The results of the analysis show that parts  of  the decision-making process and the aftermath can be referred to as post-democratic, and that, according to Mouffe's definition, the policies pursued by Mouffe are more concerned with democratic principles that are about freedom rather than equality