Between the years 1998 and 2008 four contenders battled for the home video game industry's 6th generation. First out were SEGA with their Dreamcast, followed by Sony's PlayStation 2, Nintendo's GameCube and Microsoft's Xbox. Pretty soon the PlayStation 2 executed their first opponent from SEGA and after that it was practically a solo race. What did Sony do to control two thirds of

In order to fully grasp the phenomena 'City' we must understand its political structure as an integrated part of its physical structure and vice versa. This thesis focuses on one crucial element of the City, the public space, and discusses it in relation to the public realm, or sphere, of the City. The aim is to see if it is possible to conceive public space as a spatial dimension of power

A water crisis depends on more than a lack of supply, it is also about policies and management. Namibia, a Southern African country, has chosen a decentralisation-strategy, including privatisation and community management, in order to improve the efficiency, equality and sustainability, in the water sector. This strategy is also known as the Integrated Water Resource Management-process (IWRM). My

The base for the study is laid during an internship at a regional office in Brussels. The study initially concentrates on the function and activities of different regional offices located in Brussels, in order to answer the core question. The main focus is to reveal an eventual change of cooperation patterns between different regional offices, and in particular the eventual redirection away from

The purpose of this paper was to increase understanding of how foreign professionals within the diplomatic sector, working with foreign relations to Japan, feel, perceive and relate to Japanese nationalism. The concept of banal nationalism and semiology was used as a theoretical base for the study, as well as theories of Japanese cultural or racial uniqueness (Nihonjinron). A phenomenological meth

The following essay studies the change in the use of terminology pertaining to socioeconomic categorising in public political material, and how this relates to ideological changes in politics. The aim is to determine which expressions government commission reports have used after the Second World War to classify citizens in social and economic groups, and subsequently, to link the understanding of

This thesis examines organisations as mediators and how different kinds of organisations have different prerequisites to act as mediators. Global, regional and subregional organisations are often asked to mediate in conflicts, but considering the circumstances, who should mediate? In a mediating process the mediator should be considered as important an actor as the disputing parties and should he

The Swedish society woke up Boxing Day 2004 to the greatest disaster in modern times. As a result of a strong earthquake in the Indian Ocean tsunamis occurred that devastated resorts where thousands of Swedes were. In the disasters tracks were uncovered government paralysis and shortcomings of the systems control. The purpose of this study is to examine the capacity and means to demand accountabil

The analysis of regional development and the formation of regional policy have experienced an increasing importance in Europe and in Sweden during the last decades. There is a widespread assumption that the increasing significance of regions is due to the diminishing role of the nationstate in the era of globalization. This essay suggests that there is a hegemonic discourse, heavily relying on the

This thesis focuses on how sewdish politicians try to argue to get other EU-countries to accept a larger responsibility for refugees. Since the war in Iraq broke out in 2003 there have been a great increse in the number of refugees arriving to Europe. Sweden have accepted a very large part of these refugees. This have sparked a debate in Sweden aboute how reasonable it is that sweden accepts a pro

In the past years the traditional donors of development assistance have been increasingly aware of changes in the donor landscape. This as emerging economies like China and India has undergone a transition from recieving aid to becoming emerging donors. By identifying and comparing ideas, beliefs and interests pursued using foreign aid between so called emerging and traditional donors, the greater

Denna uppsats har ambitionen att utforska politisk identitet på Möllevången, ett område i Malmös innerstad, och syftet är att studera hur plats och politisk identitet kan kopplas. Mot bakgrund av diskussioner kring möjligheter till social förändring i ett samhälle där modernitetens sammanhang ifrågasätts, behandlas det lokala som en potentiellt betydelsefull faktor i skapandet av en politisk ident

Scopo e quadro generale: Il fenomeno linguistico ?della ristrutturazione si verifica spesso in italiano. Eppure, in alcuni dialetti parlati in Italia non è un fenomeno sempre presente. Il fine della presente tesi è di investigare, con l'ausilio di un questionario, i meccanismi del fenomeno di ristrutturazione nel dialetto veneziano e di paragonare il veneziano con l'italiano standard per q

In Africa, women's status in politics, their economic standard and their position within social hierarchies and practices is subordinated to that of men. The aim of this thesis is to examine how colonialism, liberation ideology and women's movements have influenced the empowerment of women in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique and attempt to account for why women in South Africa have at

Colombia är ett land med en över 40 årig lång internkonflikt vilket har bidragit till att en avsevärd del av landets befolkning tvingats fly och lämna sina hem. De allra flesta flyr inte över Colombias gränser till andra länder, utan stannar i landet och blir internflyktingar. Tanken bakom denna uppsats är att undersöka problematiken kring dessa internflyktingar och om de omfattas av principerna o

The prospect of Turkish accession to the EU has sparked controversy in many of the member countries. It has highlighted the different ways in which European as well as Turkish identity is being defined in the debate, with some politicians seemingly trying to draw on old prejudices in order to make the case against membership. By utilising discourse analysis as advocated by Thomas Diez, this thesis

Syftet med denna uppsats var att ifrågasätta den ofta antagna åsikten att en dialog mellan olika religionstraditioner kan skapa enhet, samstämmighet och en stadig grund för att lösa sociala problem, såsom diskriminering, fördomar, segregering och motsättningar. Nordirland valdes som fallstudie på grund av att religionen där förespråkas ha en betydande roll i historien, och för att en konstruktiv d

The increasing significance of social economy as a concept is linked to general global processes such as the crisis of the welfare state, neoliberal globalization, anti-bureaucracy tendencies and decentralization, but also to a growing political interest in human rights and social development. In Sweden the idea of the social economy generates wide support within civil society as well as within th

The focal point of the essay is the right to food as a human right. The author argues that there is a need for a change in the human rights system concerning the right to food, since the original framework assigns full responsibility to the individual states, whereas in today's global power structures, government policies and national institutional arrangements in poor countries have very litt

This diploma work is about the situation of refugees in a world of conflicts, borders and tourists, designed as a critical counterpoint to the competition ?Venice Lagoon Park?organized by the magazine 2G, autumn 2007. I have transformed the competition's program idea of giving tourists and visitors information, into a space for educating the public about refugees and their reality. The site i