Are all parliamentarians treated equally in their parliamentary work? And do all parliamentarians have equal opportunities to carry out their duties? This study seeks to understand if parliamentarians with a foreign background have equal opportunities to carry out their parliamentary duties and whether this differs between men and women. To achieve this, in-depth interviews with Swedish parliamentarians with a foreign background, have been conducted. The study shows that there are cases of both direct and indirect discrimination against people with a foreign background in the Swedish parliament. Most of the respondents also face direct discrimination and racism on social media that is linked to the legislators' background and/or gender. Male and female respondents do not seem to experience different levels of discrimination. However, the discrimination they experience seems to be different. The study also investigates the strategies used to respond to discrimination. The strategies and time the legislators spend on responding to the discrimination require a great deal of commitment outside their regular work tasks. The respondents thus seem to have to work more and harder in their parliamentary work, a commitment that takes both time and energy.

<p> </p><p>The 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections were in many ways special, where the USA got its first president of Afro-American origin, Barack Obama. The elections will also be historical since the great use of social medias - as the community Facebook, the video sharing site YouTube and web based diaries, blogs - broke through during the campaigns. This study's purpose was to examine how a few members of the Swedish parliament described the result of the Presidential Elections in their blogs. The main question - how the election results were described in the blogs - was divided into three themes, created on the basis of the blog's content. The themes were Barack Obama, John McCain and the future. To answer the questions a qualitative text analysis was made, in order to analyze the positive and negative values and opinions in the blog posts. The results showed that the majority of the chosen seven bloggers - one from each parliament party - had a positive view of Barack Obama's victory. Obama's winner speech got special attention. Regarding John McCain, he was described as a good loser, even though - as in the Obama theme - there were exceptions. The majority of the bloggers had an optimistic view of the future, but the most of them thought that Obama will face many difficult challenges, like the financial crisis and the anxiety in the Middle East. In the final discussion Obama's election campaign, with it's engagement in social medias, and hope for a better future, were the main causes to the overall optimistic view in the blogs. Finally, a discussion about what didactic consequences the blog's place in education in civics will have. More participation and better insight into the political life are two positive consequences. Dragging peoples name in the mud and the creating of false rumors are two negative consequences. Key words: blog, social media, presidential elections, Swedish parliament members.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

The 2008 U.S. Presidential Elections were in many ways special, where the USA got its first president of Afro-American origin, Barack Obama. The elections will also be historical since the great use of social medias - as the community Facebook, the video sharing site YouTube and web based diaries, blogs - broke through during the campaigns. This study's purpose was to examine how a few members of the Swedish parliament described the result of the Presidential Elections in their blogs. The main question - how the election results were described in the blogs - was divided into three themes, created on the basis of the blog's content. The themes were Barack Obama, John McCain and the future. To answer the questions a qualitative text analysis was made, in order to analyze the positive and negative values and opinions in the blog posts. The results showed that the majority of the chosen seven bloggers - one from each parliament party - had a positive view of Barack Obama's victory. Obama's winner speech got special attention. Regarding John McCain, he was described as a good loser, even though - as in the Obama theme - there were exceptions. The majority of the bloggers had an optimistic view of the future, but the most of them thought that Obama will face many difficult challenges, like the financial crisis and the anxiety in the Middle East. In the final discussion Obama's election campaign, with it's engagement in social medias, and hope for a better future, were the main causes to the overall optimistic view in the blogs. Finally, a discussion about what didactic consequences the blog's place in education in civics will have. More participation and better insight into the political life are two positive consequences. Dragging peoples name in the mud and the creating of false rumors are two negative consequences. Key words: blog, social media, presidential elections, Swedish parliament members.

This study examines the parliamentary debate regarding the proposition "Ny kärnkraft i Sverige - Ett första steg" which aims to facilitate the expansion of nuclear power in Sweden. The purpose is to provide an understanding of the nuclear power debate in the Swedish Parliament since it has been revived by the energy crisis in 2021 and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The debate is analyzed through a qualitative content analysis to identify the arguments of Tidöpartierna and the opposition for and against the proposition. The identified arguments are then interpreted through the social identity perspective to explain their different standpoints. The results show that nuclear power is a divisive issue in the Swedish Parliament. Interpretation through social identity theory reveals that the parties' historical positions, their perception of which arguments are most effective to attract voters, and confirmation bias influence their views on the nuclear power issue. The conclusions indicate that it is an issue that divides the Parliament into two sides: Tidöpartierna and the opposition parties, with each side presenting different solutions to the energy issue. Tidöpartierna argues for an energysystem where nuclear power complements renewable energy sources, while the oppositionparties favor a solution where the energy system is solely based on renewable energy sources.

The main question in this thesis is what kind of considerations political parties in the Swedish parliament have made between individual freedoms and state power in matters concerning information technology. Hence, it relates to a central and never ending debate about the proper relationship between the individual rights of citizens and protection of their personal integrity vis-à-vis state power and the interest of society in general, and in particular how this is affected by the rapid development of information technology. Four cases of legislative processes about information technology are analyzed. These cases concern parliamentary debates regarding the secrecy act (sekretesslagen) in 1980 (first debate), three debates concerning the personal data act (personuppgiftslagen) in 1998-99, three debates concerning the surveillance and crime prevention act (lag om hemlig rumsavlyssning &amp; åtgärder för att förhindra vissa särskilt allvarliga brott med mera) in 2006-07 and three debates concerning the national defence radio establishment act (FRA &amp; lag om signalspaning) in 2007-09. An analytical model is developed that includes two ideal types, individual freedom and state power, for the study and categorization of the parties and their positions in each debate. Thus, parties are categorized according to their proximity to the ideal types. The study illustrates that the majority of parties have a tendency to compromise between values constituting the two ideal types; they choose a so called hybrid position in between individual freedom and state power. The exception to this pattern is the Green Party and the Left Party that tend to choose a position close to individual freedom. Three hypotheses are tested. The first implies that parties tend to position themselves in-between the ideal type positions of individual freedom and state power (hybrid positions). This hypothesis gets strong support as hybrid positions are the most common outcome. The second hypothesis infers that a party has a tendency to support state power when in government, but individual freedom when in opposition. This hypothesis also gets empirical support, as parties, when in government, tend increasingly to support values related to state power, but support is somewhat weaker than for the first hypothesis. Finally, the third hypothesis implies that September 11 2001 was a critical moment in relation to how parties deal with values related to individual freedom and state power, i.e. parties were expected generally to be more disposed to support state power after than before September 11. This gets some support as most parties show this tendency. In parliamentary debates after September 11 the Social Democrats, the Moderate Party and the Liberal Party have been more disposed to position themselves close to the value of state power. On the other hand, the Green Party and the Left Party have not changed their positons. One reason could be that neither of these two parties were in government during the studied years

The purpose of this study was to investigate which kind of arguments that were used during the debate before the law of sexual services was introduced in Sweden. The study refers to the debate which was in the Swedish parliament The study has been structured the arguments in different categories.  The study has not found other researchers about the debate in the Swedish parliament. The study has just found several studies about the prostitution problem in general. The method for this study has been idea centered content analysis. The results were analyzed through an analyze diagram with arguments against the law of sexual services and arguments for the law of sexual service. On each side in the debate the analyze diagram has had eleven different categories of arguments. The results of the study showed that the juridical arguments were the most common in the debate.

Title: Lobbying in the Swedish parliament - a qualitative study about experiences and attitudes of lobbying among the members of the Swedish parliament, from a communication perspective. Author: Bodil Hassel and Kristofer Persson Tutor: Emma Svensson Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to study lobbying towards members of the Swedish parliament. We aim to study their point of view: what experiences and attitudes they have towards the phenomenon. Key questions to be answered are: What experiences and attitudes do the members of the Swedish parliamentary Committee on Environment and Agriculture have towards lobbying? What skills does a successful lobbyist possess, according to the members of the committee? How do the organizations Skogsindustrierna and Naturskyddsföreningen lobby? Method/Material: The material used in this study consists of interviews with nine respondents of the Committee on Environment and Agriculture in the Swedish parliament. Additionally, two informant interviews with the organizations Skogsindustrierna and Naturskyddsföreningen were made. The questions for the interviews were based on a theoretical framework based on policies of lobbying. Main results: The main results demonstrate that all members of the Committee on Environment and Agriculture have a positive attitude towards lobbying. The results further show that a professional lobbyist of choice by the members of parliament is a three-stage rocket consisting of 1) proper preparation, 2) the right way to make contact, and 3) maintenance of the relation. Number of pages: 62 Course: Media and Communication studies C University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University Period: Fall 2013

Riksdagen beskrivs ibland som Sveriges demokratiska och politiska hjärta. Alla medborgare ska kunna delta i den demokratiska diskussionen. Personer med hörselnedsättning och dövhet fick denna rättighet år 2000. Denna studie har undersökt teckenspråkstolkningen av en partiledardebatt i Sverigesriksdag. Fokus i studien har varit teckenspråkstolkars så kallade copingstrategier, dvs. språkliga och tolktekniska strategier i tolkningen som används för att säkerställa tolkningens kvalitet. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ, diskursanalytisk ansats. Materialet består av en tre timmar och 35 minuter lång filmad partiledardebatt samt en semistrukturerad intervju med en teckenspråkstolk med lång erfarenhet från tolkning i riksdagen. I materialet har sju olika copingstrategier identifierats: processtid, bokstavering, adekvata utelämningar, adekvata tillägg, samarbete med teamtolken, parafrasering och konstruerat agerande. Förhoppningen är att genom systematisk beskrivning och analys synliggöra teckenspråkstolkning som profession, och hur denna i sin tur bidrar till tillgänglighet och inkludering i den svenska demokratin. / Sometimes the Swedish Parliament is described as the heart of the Swedish democracy and politics. Every Swedish citizen has the right to participate in the political discussion. People with a disabled hearing and deaf people got this right in 2000. This essay has examined the sign language interpretation of a party leader debate in the Swedish Parliament. The main focus of this essay has been the sign language interpreters’ usage of coping strategies, in other words, techniques of interpretation and linguistic strategies, which secure the quality of the interpretation. The study is based on a discourse analytical perspective with a qualitative approach. The results are based on a three hours and 35 minutes lasting, video-recorded debate between the leaders of the different parties of the Swedish Parliament, and on a semi-structured interview with a sign language interpreter with a long experience as an interpreter in the Swedish Parliament. Seven different coping strategies could be identified and analyzed: lag time, spelling, adequate omissions, adequate additions, cooperation with the team interpreter, paraphrasing, constructed acting. Hopefully, this systematic description and analysis can help to spread some light on the profession of sign language interpretation, and how it contributes to accessibility and inclusion into the Swedish democracy.

In 2003 a WHO treaty presented the use of cigarettes and tobacco as an international tobacco epidemic: a public health concern that needed to be diminished. Decreasing smoking prevalence can be an effect of individual choice, the social context or of governmental interventions. This master thesis originated in an interest in governmental measures aimed at decreasing the population´s smoking prevalence. The data used in this thesis include records of parliamentary and governmental bills as well as the parliamentary debates in the Swedish Parliament 1971 and 2011. Discourse analysis was used to analyse how the hazards of cigarette smoking in a public health perspective were of any interest to the national political arena of the Swedish Parliament. Fivethemes developed from the documents. The essence of the themes evolved to vision, society structure and tools for policy making. To conclude: forty years of policy making resulted in legislation; a smoking ban was put into place and shift of societal norms.The agenda of tobacco policy making expanded, what was politically acceptable and possible to add to the agenda during forty years varied. There were changes in discourse as well as development of new discourse.

The consequences due to sea level rise are many, and will affect the environment and societies all around the world. There is uncertainty about how much and how quickly the sea will rise. Despite the uncertainties, society must be adapted to a changing climate. The climate change adaptation work is relatively new in Sweden, and there are still uncertainties about how this work should be carried out, and by whom. This thesis examines to what degree the Swedish parliament parties’ view on how to plan and adapt to sea level rise differ. The study is based on interviews with representatives from a majority of the political parties in the Swedish parliament. The results show that the interviewed representatives all agree that climate change and sea level rise are important issues to work with. The result also shows that the different parties have managed to agree on what they want to achieve, but not how or when it is best to implement adaptation measures towards sea level rise and other climate change-related effects. / Konsekvenserna av havsnivåhöjningar är många och kommer att påverka miljön och samhällen över hela jorden. Det råder osäkerheter om hur mycket och hur snabbt haven kommer höjas. Trots osäkerheterna så måste samhället anpassas till ett förändrat klimat. Klimatanpassningsarbetet är relativt nytt i Sverige och det råder fortfarande oklarheter om hur detta ska genomföras och av vem.   Uppsatsen undersöker i vilken utsträckning de svenska riksdagspartiernas åsikter angående planeringen och anpassningar till havsnivåhöjningen skiljer sig. Studien bygger på intervjuer med representanter från en majoritet av de politiska partierna i riksdagen. Resultaten visar på att de intervjuade representanterna alla håller med om att klimatanpassning är viktigt att arbeta med. Resultaten visar även på att de olika partierna har lyckats enas om vad man vill uppnå, men dock inte på vilket sätt man ska gå till väga eller när det är bäst att implementera åtgärder mot havsnivåhöjning och andra klimatförändringsrelaterade effekter.