The idea of this study is based on the legislative process of the Swedish temporary asylum law. Due to an increasing number of request for asylum in 2015, the parliament appointed a temporary asylum law to create a more restrictive migration policy. This measure was criticized by several parliamentary committees which were emphasising different negative aspects that could possibly affect the refugees. The government responded to the critics by referring to the EU minimum level and by comparison with other EU countries. In 2019 the parliament decided to extend the temporary law even though the number of asylum seekers had decreased. The main argument for this extension was to prevent an increasing amount of asylum seekers as soon as the migration policy in Sweden were to become more generous again. Previous research has shown that not long after the first proposition of the temporary asylum law the law was implemented, indicating a rushed decision made by the Swedish parliament. Thus is our purpose with this study to examine the political negotiations of the legislative process regarding the temporary asylum law and its extension. In addition to that the aim of the study is also to research if the extension of the law contributed to different discourses. Through a critical discourse analysis our main conclusion is that the underlying negotiations of the legislative process cover four main areas: economy and resources, EU, the asylum system and consequences. Within each field we discovered discourses that could be applicable in both the legislative process of 2016 and in the process of extension 2019. Nevertheless the result of the analysis also presented two discourses that became important parts in relation to the extension. These discourses were convention on the rights of the child and EU. Even though these discourses could be found in the first legislative process, they reach a remarkably higher state of importance in the extension of the asylum law and therefore are appointed as new since they did not held the same level of relevance before.

This thesis investigates Zigenarundersökningen [the Gypsy study] – a socio-medical study of Swedish Roma conducted in 1962-1965. The Study was financed by the National Labour Market Board, which sought scientific information on every adult Roma citizen in order to plan for targeted authority interventions. The socio-medical team used a number of different medical and social techniques, drawing together different kinds of data – from the molecular to the social level – and adding “objective” records from public institutions, which resulted in the creation of detailed and voluminous individual case files. On the basis of these files, the public health specialist John Takman in charge of the socio-medical examinations formulated a professional opinion on each individual and family. During the execution of the study, new scientific and social questions were articulated, resulting in that the originally limited investigation concerning only a smaller group of Roma citizens evolved into a comprehensive research project covering all people identified as Swedish Roma. In this thesis, this expansion is analysed using methodological tools from Science and Technology Studies that focus on the reflexivity between the goals of scientific actors, and the social conditions and problematisations that surround them. In this way, science and policy mutually influence each other in situated practices, which also involves the drawing of scientific boundaries that serve to establish epistemic authority.   Departing from Engin F. Isin’s theory on social citizenship, and its alterities, as constituted in contingent and contextualised social practices, and from Franca Iacovetta’s study of Canadian gatekeepers’ work in cold-war Canada, the thesis investigates how the, with time, increasing and more comprehensive activities of experts and professionals created new dimensions of citizenship. Against this background, the thesis draws the conclusion that the scientific-political examinations of problematised citizenship and citizens in Sweden in the 1960’s, while defining deviance, also defined normality. This implies, furthermore, that scientific measurements and classifications of alterity contributed to constituting those measuring and classifying – the experts and professionals – as virtuous citizens, in accordance with contemporary norms of professionalism and expertise, while the Roma were continually constructed as problematic citizens. Hence, scientific-political activities concerning Swedish Roma in the 1960’s created new spaces of social citizenship, where the contents of both normality and deviance were nuanced and (re)defined.

This master’s thesis in ethnology aim to enlighten the driving forces behind why a local football club, in a segregated residential area, outside of Stockholm in Sweden, chooses to develop its association in a more social direction. This is a cultural study of why football, as a cultural phenomenon, is expected to be able to solve social problems, and more generally how is sport considered a tool and a solution to social problems? Why is football expected to be able to solve segregation in a socio-economically vulnerable areas, of those who lead the sports activities? The empirical material of this essay has been collected through oral interviews from leaders of the association and government officials. Material from the association's development documents, state active board members from the association, government documents, and news articles have also been analyzed. By using the Political Discourse Theory by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (2008 [1985]), the situations for how the sports activities have been designed can be seen as made in relation to the general hegemonic discourse on the social benefits of sport. It is also possible to discover how government grants work as guidelines and point out what the sports movement should perform under state supervision. Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory (2007), by Jason Glynos and David Howarth, are used in the analysis and especially their fantasmatic logic has given this study an insight into the idea or perception that football leaders have of the outside world, in this case the idea of the social benefit of sport. Which in turn can explain why they in turn invest their commitment in and attract their drive from these ideas because the conviction is about being able to change the socio-economic situation in their local area. In the end, however, it turns out that neither sport nor football alone cannot serve as the solution in the fight against child poverty, criminal activity, and segregation. Sport’s simply does not have all the characteristics required to reform, challenge, or question a social order created or even built on inequality and segregation. But this in no way takes sport into account in contexts where it can socially contribute to a community that can play a significant role for its participants in their everyday lives.

Der Verein für Socialpolitik konnte in den siebziger und achtziger Jahren auf eine beeindruckende Historie zurückblicken, drohte aber den Anschluss an die sich mehr und mehr internationalisierende Wirtschaftswissenschaft zu verlieren. In diesem Beitrag zeichnen Friedrich Schneider, Ronnie Schöb, Hans-Werner Sinn und Marcel Thum<fnote> Hans-Werner Sinn war von 1997 bis 2000 Vorsitzender des Vereins, Friedrich Schneider hatte dieses Amt von 2005 bis 2008 inne. Ronnie Schöb war von 1997 bis 2000 Geschäftsführer und Marcel Thum im selben Zeitraum Schriftführer des Vereins.</fnote> die wichtigsten Veränderungen und Reformmaßnahmen in den Jahren 1990–2010 nach, mit denen der Verein für Socialpolitik zu einem international wettbewerbsfähigen Forum für wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Forschung wurde. Die vielfältigen Reformen in diesen zwei Jahrzehnten haben mit dazu beigetragen, dass die wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Forschung im deutschsprachigen Raum in der Breite international anschlussfähig wurde.