Skateboarding has become a world-wide phenomenon that has the ability to fit into any culture. Iceland supports a healthy, vibrant skateboard culture. The city itself is young and undergoing many changes presently that have both positive and negative effects on the skateboard community. These redevelopment projects have an impact on the skateboarders' identities because they are formed out of occupied spaces. Qualitative methods such as participant observation were used to explore Reykjavik's skateboard culture. Understanding how skateboarders feel about public spaces can help in understanding how these spaces can be used to improve the city. Some of the most important skatespots in Reykjavik are Ingolfstorg and Harpa, both of which are part of redevelopment projects. Having access to this type of high quality public space has provided a setting for the development of a healthy skateboard community.

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The main objective of this dissertation is to seek answers to three questions: 1) Why did it take so much longer for women than men to win the vote? 2) Why did it take women so long to be elected in any numbers to national legislatures?, and 3) What has been the political significance of women's entry into national legislatures? The answers are sought by examining an aspect of the development of parties ignored by most political scientists, namely the relationship between women's suffrage, party politics and patriarchal power. An empirical study on Iceland is used to examine this aspect in detail. In the period 1908- 1926, women in Iceland ran separate lists at local and national elections. The fate of the women's lists in Reykjavik is explored and so are the policies of women councillors. Iceland was not the only country to see the emergence of separate women's political organizations that ran candidates at elections. The outcome was nowhere as successful as in Iceland. Through the rise, and decline, of the women's lists and women's policies in Reykjavik, the factors that allowed women to carry out their own maternalistic politics within a male-run system are illuminated. The dissertation draws on numerous theories and postulations within political science. It also challenges many of them. Theda Skocpol's structured policy approach proves highly useful in examining the larger political environment and factors that stimulated or hindered women's politics and policies in Reykjavik. The approach does not, however, account for male power as a force on its own. The structured policy approach is challenged by providing another important factor, the role of individuals and their ideas as a political force. The conclusion is that patriarchal theories are needed within political science, and it is suggested that political parties, their origin and working methods, provide excellent starting points from which to examine male power, or patriarchy, as a political force of its own. / digitalisering@umu

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The Master's Thesis on the Inflow of the Federal Republic of Germany in the Western Security System, 1969-1974, consists of four and tied parts. The first part is an introduction, which has put the reader into the problem of this work. It also includes the methodology of processing of the archival sources and secondary literature and their evaluation too. The Second part is an analyses of the question of Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), the importance of this Treaty for the future development and the position of the so-called Grand coaliton in relation to NPT. The third part is an analyses the question of détente policy and conception of Willy Brandt's European security policy, then the problem of the implications of the US/USSR Strategic Arms Limitation Talks for the security status of the Federal Republic of Germany and also the developing of mutual relationships of FRG with NATO in SALT process and involvement of the Nixon administrative in this policy. This chapter also includes the problem of the question of the importance of SPD/FDP security policy in an international context. The fourth chapter is a study of the internal political reasons of Willy Brandt's security policy, mainly the problem of existence of a terrorist group, the Red Army Faction. At the end of this...