This thesis analyses how social policy in the form of benefit sanctions targeted at the long-term unemployed is made by case workers within the Swedish Public Employment Agency (Arbetsförmedlingen). Since the 1990s, rising unemployment and fiscal pressures on the welfare states made countries more oriented towards policies of “activation”. In 2007, the Job and Development Programme (JOB), was init

The advent of the epoch known as the Anthropocene has been treated as a paradigm shift throughout the natural as well as parts of the social sciences. This shift entails mankind’s becoming of a geological force alongside others. Political theory and International Relations in particular have, however, been slow to pick this up. This thesis is an attempt to fill this gap. In this thesis I examine t

The European Union has expanded its foreign policy significantly in recent years. It is now widely accepted as an important, albeit unique, international actor. Given the EU’s growing influence on the global scene, this study aims to describe changes in EU role conceptions between 2003 and 2016. Departing in role theory, the study constructs an analytical framework based on ideal types. Mapping EU

There has been a large critique towards NPM in Swedish media during the past couple of years. This study analyzes what the problems and solutions associated with NPM are represented to be. The material is collected from three areas: The Swedish Government, elderly care and social services in Stockholm City and the Swedish academic community working with public administration. The overall conclusio

The environment has become a politicized area where one single party can no longer make a huge difference. This requires that the mainstream parties take action and environment becomes the object for party competition. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate and explain how the environmental problem becomes widely recognized problem for the mainstream parties. By distinguishing between establi

The aim of this thesis is to analyse what ideas the gender politics of the Swedish nationalist party the Swedish Democrats consists of. The purpose of the study is to identify what they mean when talking about gender inequality and how women are portrayed in material concerning this issue. The objects of the study are written texts, pictures and a video produced by their women’s association SD-kvi

Occidentalism as a phenomenon discusses the hostile stereotypes of the Western world that fuel the hatred of certain movements, like that of the Islamic State. By using a dehumanizing picture of the West, this terror group aims to demonize the Western society, which has been proved to be an effective way to recruit members. The following essay is a qualitative content analysis, which aims to study

3D printing of metal components is a growing industry where the demand of highly precise and complicated geometrical metal structures are met. Höganäs is with its Digital Metal department one of the few companies that do 3D-printing by powder bed ink-jet technique. In this technique a binding material is needed in order to retain the designated structure until sintering. In this project a 316 L g

In all the different shapes democracy have presented itself throughout history, the newest must be the one of e-democracy. Like all other forms of democracy, edemocracy is heatedly debated within the field of science. In this thesis, I explored e-democracy embodied as e-petitions. I did so by performing a qualitative case study about Lundaförslaget, the new e-petition system in the town of Lund. I

Political mavericks, here referring to elected politicians who remain in office after leaving their political parties, is a disputed phenomenon. The maverick’s action is not legally wrong. One might, however, question if it’s morally desirable. The purpose of this study, ocurring in a Swedish context, is to answer the question of whether the political maverick can be justified. Using normative me

The development of antibiotic resistant bacteria is potentially one of the largest challenges of our times. Despite the well-known fact that resistant bacteria evolve from over use this wrongful use continues, not the least in animal production. Despite that Denmark and Sweden have many cultural similarities, the usage of antibiotics in animal production shows significant differences. Sheila Jasan

This thesis examines the effect of social origins (parents’ class) on left-right orientation. By examining the preferences of the socially mobile, the thesis estimates whether their preferences are more similiar to immobile members of the origin class, or to immobile members of the destination class. To estimate this correctly, the thesis utilizes the diagonal reference model developed by Sobel. T

Sometimes are words most familiar to us, the hardest ones to define. They seem self-explanatory. Political concepts are not just words that create ambivalence. They affect and shape people’s lives. This thesis engages with the present context of the European Union (EU) and investigates the meaning of Citizenship and Active citizenship. It poses the questions; what do we need citizenship for? The c

The international anti-corruption commission CICIG managed to achieve unexpected success when they dismantled a corruption ring within Guatemala’s government. The results are remarkable since Anti-Corruption Agencies (ACA) often fail due to societal corruption, which is a big problem in Guatemala. But CICIG is also controversial since it is an international organisation with the authority to inves

This thesis investigates why the variance in turnout for national and European Parliament elections is lower in France than in the United Kingdom. Based on the Most Similar System Design, it hypothesises that the variance is explained by the difference in the election campaigns conduct, following France’s and the United Kingdom’s switch of electoral systems for the European Parliament Elections. H

Education is commonly agreed upon as being one of the main drivers of national economic development which has led to a greater incorporation of education policies in development projects. Internationally, the World Bank is the single largest provider of expertise knowledge and financial aid to education development and as such they can play a key role in shaping policies and how problems are under

The European Union (EU) has been criticised for the lack of a social dimension but just recently the Commission proposed a new initiative; the European Pillar of Social Rights. This thesis focuses on civil society and on the different ideas concerning its role in European Social Policy. The study will draw on theories developed from Esping-Andersen’s welfare states models together with theories on

During the latest decades, active labour market policies have been launched in Sweden with the aim of reducing social exclusion and unemployment. In the wake of this policy, the idea-based public partnership – IOP was formed in 2010. Public institutions sign partnership agreements with actors from civil society to solve welfare problems. Through the IOP civil society has received a renegotiated ro

The purpose of this paper was to assess how the EU chemical regulation, REACH, affected the reform of the U.S. Toxic Substances Control Act. It borrows from theories of policy diffusion and of the EU as a regulatory power, which were used to theorize two causal mechanisms potentially leading to convergence between the European and American chemical regulations, tested using a method of process-tra

To the reader acquainted with academic discourses about working time reduction, the public discussion about such a policy seems incomplete. This raises the question of how and why certain academic discourses are taken up in the public debate, while others are excluded. This thesis aims at developing a theoretical framework to explore this question in the light of social power relations. It thereby