This thesis is a case study of the democratic consolidation in Spain. The study initially presents theories on democratic consolidation, as interpreted and defined by renowned political scientist. Then, different factors are presented known to have contributed to democratization in the Spanish case. These are; the role of the military refurbishment, the impact of EU membership, the actions of King

A strong linkage between the political views of the public and political elites is a fundamental feature of the democratic process. This master thesis aims to analyze the congruence between politicians and voters regarding the proposal to prohibit private welfare companies to earn profit. By using a matched pair of surveys collected during the years of 2012 and 2017, this essay analyses how issue

Climate change is becoming increasingly present and the individual responsibility of states, as well as global corporations, are emphasized as absolutely necessary in order to be able to achieve sustainable development for future generations. This essay is a descriptive discourse analysis about Norway's oil extraction in the vulnerable Arctic region. The goal of this essay is to examine how th

Historically being a success to the European Union and its integration processes, technical standardisation has been a dormant policy area low down on the European Commission’s agenda priority list – until now. The increasing international competition has arguably spurred the Commission to push for speedy developments in standardisation to establish the EU once again in a leading position, thus ef

This paper aims to understand the constitution of the al-Hol camp in Syria, where thousands of women and children from 57 different countries are detained in subhuman conditions. I did that by studying the case of the Swedish children, motivated by the contradiction that those children did not get help even though they belong to one of the most liberal welfare states in the world. As a result, par

The purpose of this thesis has been to explain and investigate Estonia’s democratization by studying the country to find the factors that contributed to the outcome of a democratic state. Estonia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1992 and quickly transitioned towards a stable democratic state, and 13 years later the country joined the European Union, which proved the ultimate consolidat

The Swedish foreign policy is based on values such as peace, human rights and democracy. Along with these values, Sweden has been exporting weapons to the Saudi-led coalition who is a part of the war in Yemen. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Sweden’s arms export to warring countries in Yemen should be conducted based on the legal framework, the guidelines and the commitments in the

This thesis examines how free establishment for private health care providers relates to the geographical distribution of primary care centers in the Skane region. Also, the region’s work with the primary cares’ reimbursement systems is examined. I theorize different ownership forms based on profit motive; publicly-run, private-in-own-operation, cooperative-private-limited-companies, and corporate

Climate refugees are becoming increasingly common due to increased global warming as a result of excess emissions, the vast majority of which come from the Global North. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the climate refugee issue is described in Swedish media against a backdrop of a potential conflict between a Swedish self-image as progressive in humanitarian matters, and the recent strict

This study aims to examine in which way the Swedish security discourse has been portrayed in Swedish media during a nearby conflict at two separate time periods, Prague spring 1968 and the war in Ukraine 2022. The purpose is to find out how the security discourse in the media reporting has changed between these events. Through a qualitative content analysis as a method, news articles that have bee

Nowadays, excessive congestion has become a pressing issue for many large cities. Traffic congestion is one of the main sources of air pollutants. A congestion tax is a priced-based policy instrument, aimed to reduce congestion and improve air quality in inner city areas. Revenue from the congestion tax is used for investments in public transport and a better road system in the city. In Sweden, a

The European Union is often characterised as a normative power; an actor that is driven by values and principles such as democracy, liberty, peace and the rule of law. This thesis investigates whether the European Union perceives itself as such through a qualitative case study of how the EU perceives its role in Africa. It utilises role theory – in the form of a typology of national role conceptio

The covid-19 pandemic has left an irreversible impact of an immense magnitude on the world. Over six million people have died after contracting the virus, and millions more are grieving and living with the aftermath of a loss of a family member. In Europe, countries have chosen different ways to tackle and curb the spread of the virus with varying degree of success, In order to save lives, complia

The way in which the Mughal rulers Akbar and Aurangzeb are commonly represented perpetuates a misleading and occasionally dangerous depiction. Akbar is described as a liberal and tolerant leader, whose only goal was to bring eternal peace to Hindus and Muslims. Aurangzeb on the other hand is characterized as a dogmatic and fiercly conservative Muslim whose main objective was the subjugation and ha

This thesis unpacks the similarities and dissimilarities between Connecting Europe and Asia – Building blocks for an EU Strategy from 2018 and the Global Gateway from 2021, two Joint Communications from the European Commission and the EEAS on connectivity. The comparison shows that the Global Gateway has followed up on the suggestions for change or creation from the 2018 strategy. It shows that th

The effect of ”Quiet Eye” (QE), an oculomotor behavior predicting improved performance, has been identified in a variety of sports studies in the past 30 years. Most commonly, longer QE durations and earlier QE onsets results in higher accuracy of the participants. Recently, Dahl et al. (2021) have shown that these findings can be generalized to esports, a newly emerging field of performance psych

FLO is designed and dedicated to creating intuitive music playing with tactile and sensory experience for advanced music producers as well as beginners, even with minimal skills. The inspiration is from the traditional Chinese instrument, the Guzheng. Thinking in a counterfactual way, as most of the synthesizers in the market present a western symbol as the piano keys, I investigated whether the

Internet är ett nätverk där många datorer kommunicerar med varandra. På samma sätt består gennätverk av en uppsättning gener som är sammankopplade för att kunna kommunicera. Dessa sammankopplingar är dock inte alltid lätta att urskilja enbart utifrån att studera nätverkets dynamik. Processen, som ofta är lång och utmanande, kräver många tester för att få en korrekt nätverksstruktur. Detta är en beThis thesis presents the architecture of a convolutional neural network which is trained to impute the connections of randomly generated gene regulatory networks under varying amounts of regularisation. The generated gene networks are simulated from 10 different starting conditions for each set of connections in order to obtain multiple time series. The generated time series are fed into the neura

Solid waste management has become a large challenge worldwide as the generation of waste continues to increase. Deficient linear solid waste management practices have significant impacts on the environment, health and economy and there is a need for more sustainable systems and processes. Especially developing countries experience limitations on solid waste management. This study explores the dist