How come that people with disabilities still do not have the same opportunity to receive a job offer as the rest of the population? Who represents these disabled people’s interests in labormarket-related discussions? This thesis aims to evaluate the representation of the disabled within the labor market by comparing interest groups to trade union organizations based on thedebate between the Power resource approach (PRA) and the New politics (NP) perspective.There is limited research on this area related to disabled people; therefore, this thesis adapts the two theories in a new way when trying to apply the perspectives on disabled people. To empirically investigate the representation between interest groups and trade union organizations, qualitative and quantitative data are collected and analyzed using a framework for representation based on Hanna Pitkin’s definition of substantive representation. The results show that the trade union organizations do participate to a large extent, though not to the same extent as interest groups. Thereby the thesis gives some empirical support for Pierson’s New politics perspective, but this area is still in need of future research.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine in what ways female representation in municipal councils in Sweden has an influence on the quality of eldercare. The theory of the politics of presence constitutes the theoretical framework. The theory suggests that eldercare is one of several issues that are in women’s interest and hence is best represented by female politicians. According to Statistics Sweden (SCB), the elder part of the population will increase with 76 percent over the coming 20 years. It is a remarkable demographic change and, therefore, it is of interest to map out what influence female politicians have on eldercare as a political matter. To do this, statistical analysis, primarily multiple regression, is used as the methodological tool. The results indicate that female representation does not have a significant effect on the quality of eldercare. After controlling for institutional and structural variables, it appears that the portion of elderly amongst the population is what has the most evident effect on the quality of eldercare. Some final words are given on how to interpret the results, and when placing this study in relation to earlier research, it is however argued that there is not sufficient support to question the relevance of the theory of the politics of presence.

The issues of climate change continue to haunt planet earth as well as the human race. As humans we are aware of the problem, but are not yet ready to make the sacrifices needed for a conversion. There are several solutions for different environmental issues, where each and one of us humans share a responsibility to make a difference. Everyone on planet earth will be affected and will be left with shared or differentiated experiances. Women have shown to be more impacted by the consequences of climate change, and because of their experience they might be more fit for climate leadership. The aim of the survey is to determine whether the gender of the environmental minister is an explanatory variable for national environmental policy ambition. This is made through a quantitative research design, first in a bivariate regression and then a multiple regression. The multiple regression included variables consisting of economic growth, carbon dioxide emissions, proportion of women in parliament and corruption. The results from the bivariate regression showed a positive relation between female environmental ministers and environmental policy ambition. The results from the multiple regression presents that there are indicators of a positive relation between the environmental minister's gender and environmental ambition. However the variables that showed to have the most impact on environmental ambition is economic growth and corruption. The results of this paper contribute to a field of political science which has not been studied before and therefore might make a difference for future environmental politics.

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