Art for All! Nordic Art and Cultural Democracy, 1945–1959

The article will by emphasizing a transnational and geopolitical approach, investigate eight exhibitions of modern art from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden presented in Nordic cities 1946–1959. The text highlights the importance of this regional context and argues that the artworks can be seen as socially interconnected signs mediated through the communicative agency of the exhibitions. By focusing on subject matter and artwork titles presented, the article suggests that the exhibitions can be viewed as part of interacting artistic, civic, and political agendas aiming to democratize culture in the postwar Nordic welfare states

Investigating the Social

The major trade unions in Sweden have departments of investigation that gather information and write reports on issues relating to their members. This thesis is an examination of how one such trade union, Kommunal, has investigated the issue of temporary and precarious employment over the last several years. Reports and interviews with the authors of reports are described from a sociology of science or actor-network theory perspective. This study treats the investigations on the subject of precarious employment as a series of translations that leads to different versions of precarious employment, and that assembles the individual members of the trade union to social groups with interests and qualities. Both the differences and the relative stability of the groups investigated by Kommunal are discussed in this thesis.Den här masteruppsatsen är en undersökning av hur fackförbundet Kommunal har utrett frågan om tidsbegränsade och otrygga anställningar under de senaste åren. Utgångspunkten är en teoriskola från vetenskapssociologin – aktör-nätverksteori – i vilken man betraktar vetenskapliga forskningsresultat som materiellt existerande resultat av olika interaktioner mellan människor och forskningsobjekt, snarare än abstrakta referenser till en oberoende och objektiv verklighet. I undersökningen analyseras rapporter från Kommunal, tillsammans med intervjuer med rapporternas författare. De beskrivningar som Kommunal gör av otrygga anställningar i de olika rapporterna ses som olika versioner av vad otrygga anställningar är för något. Hur de olika versionerna ser ut beror på olika aktörer som funnits med vid dess skapande, såsom de resurser som rapportförfattarna har haft tillgängliga vid utredningsarbetet, policybeslut i organisationen och tidigare erfarenheter hos rapportförfattarna. Rapporternas beskrivning av gruppen otryggt anställda Kommunalmedlemmar betraktas i den här undersökningen som ett sätt att samla de olika individuella medlemmarna i Kommunal till en social grupp med gemensamma intressen och egenskaper. I uppsatsen beskrivs hur samhällsvetenskapliga metoder används som verktyg för att ge gruppen otryggt anställda Kommunalmedlemmar legitimitet och stabilitet. Detta jämförs med hur den demokratiska gången i Kommunal som organisation ger möjlighet åt Kommunals individuella medlemmar att agera tillsammans som grupp

Cultural Genocide

This thesis creates an ideal type model for the concept of cultural genocide and uses this model to analyze the relevance of the concept to the field of peace- and conflict studies. It does so through analysis of three cases, the destruction of Yuanmingyuan during the British-French North Shina Campaign of 1860, the destruction of the Buddha statues of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001 and the Canadian Residential School system of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as through comparison to the concept of genocide. Instances of cultural genocide and genocide are identified in the cases and further discussed. The concepts of genocide and cultural genocide are found to be different and the implementation of the concept of cultural genocide in peace- and conflict studies research is discussed and the conclusion drawn that it has a warranted place in the discipline

European Border and Coast Guard - An Analysis of Regulation 2016/1624 on the Allocation of Competences and the Responsibility to Protect Fundamental Rights of Asylum-Seekers

The European Border and Coast Guard was launched on October 6th, 2016. It was established through Regulation 2016/1624 and replaces the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States. The Agency is more known as Frontex. The objective with this thesis is to examine two problems in Regulation 2016/1624 that was addressed at the negotiations to the Regulation. The first problem was that the Member States considered the delegated competences to the Agency being too wide and violated the allocation of competences in the Union Treaties. The second problem was that Regulation 2016/1624 did not define if the Agency has a responsibility to protect the fundamental rights of asylum seekers. This is examined through two research questions. The first research question is whether the delegated competences to the European Border and Coast Guard in Regulation 2016/1624 is violating the Union Treaties. The second research question is whether the Agency has a responsibility to protect the fundamental rights of asylum-seekers. In order to answer these questions, a description is given in Chapter 2 on the allocation of competences and on the fundamental rights of asylum-seekers. All fundamental rights of asylum-seekers derive from the non-refoulement principle. An analysis is given on the relationship between the allocation of competences and the responsibility of the Union to protect fundamental rights. In Chapter 3, an analysis is carried out on to the allocation of competences and the competences of the Agency. In Chapter 4, the responsibility of the Agency to protect fundamental human rights of asylum-seekers is analysed. The conclusions are that the European Border and Coast Guard has competences that, in some aspects, violates the Union Treaties and that the Agency has a responsibility to protect the non-refoulement principle. The principle is jus cogens, compelling international law, from which no derogation is allowed. Through these conclusions, another problem is detected. The Union cannot interfere in the executive powers of the Member States to issue decisions of entry, asylum or return, as this would violate the allocation of competences. However, the responsibility to protect the fundamental rights of asylum-seekers requires the Agency to intervene in these executive powers. The dilemma is analysed in Chapter 5 and the conclusion is reached, that there is reason to argue that the responsibility to protect fundamental rights of asylum-seekers expands the competences of the Union. However, this is very likely to never be accepted by the Member States. This since it can be seen as a threat to the sovereignty of the Member States

Problemas y estrategias para combatir las pandemias a la luz de la gripe aviar de 2005

Este análisis se centra en la importancia de poner en marcha una estrategia de lucha contra enfermedades infecciosas que tenga en cuenta los patrones de interacción humana al intentar combatir una pandemia en la sociedad moderna. Este análisis estudia la importancia de considerar los patrones de contacto social de los individuos de una región tanto al decidir qué estrategia de vacunación emplear como al intentar limitar los contactos en la región en caso de una gran pandemia. El análisis incluye una breve introducción a los brotes recientes de nuevas enfermedades infecciosas, como el SIDA y el SARS. Llegamos a la conclusión de que a la hora de diseñar una estrategia de vacunación para impedir una mayor propagación de una enfermedad resulta más efectivo tener en cuenta los patrones de interacción social (centrándose en quienes viajan largas distancias, en individuos con gran cantidad de contactos diarios y en aquéllos con mayor riesgo de entrar en contacto con individuos contagiosos, como quienes trabajan en sanidad) que adoptar un enfoque más aleatorio o centrado en los individuos más vulnerables

Patrones de contacto social y dinámica de las enfermedades

Las enfermedades transmisibles han constituido históricamente una amenaza muy grave para la sociedad. La epidemia del SIDA, el brote de SARS y la posibilidad del bioterrorismo han dejado claro que esta amenaza sigue presente. La creciente amenaza que las enfermedades infecciosas suponen para la sociedad contemporánea es en gran medida el resultado de nuestro estilo de vida moderno, sobre todo a causa del gran número de interacciones sociales a nivel global posibles en un corto período de tiempo. Más que nunca, los patrones de contacto social son fundamentales para entender la dinámica de las enfermedades infecciosas. En este documento se comentan los principales aspectos de los modelos epidemiológicos y de los patrones de contacto que deben tenerse en cuenta y se destaca la interacción existente entre las características de las enfermedades y los patrones de interacción social. También se discuten las similitudes y diferencias existentes entre los patrones de interacción social de la sociedad actual y las sociedades de antaño y las consecuencias de ambas en la dinámica de las enfermedades

Modelling the evolution of a bipartite network-Peer referral in interlocking directorates

Abstract in Undetermined A central part of relational ties between social actors is constituted by shared affiliations and events. The action of joint participation reinforces personal ties between social actors as well as mutually shared values and norms that in turn perpetuate the patterns of social action that define groups. Therefore the study of bipartitenetworks is central to social science. Furthermore, the dynamics of these processes suggests that bipartitenetworks should not be considered static structures but rather be studied over time. In order to model the evolution of bipartitenetworks empirically we introduce a class of models and a Bayesian inference scheme that extends previous stochastic actor-oriented models for unimodal graphs. Contemporary research on interlockingdirectorates provides an area of research in which it seems reasonable to apply the model. Specifically, we address the question of how tie formation, i.e. director recruitment, contributes to the structural properties of the interlockingdirectoratenetwork. For boards of directors on the Stockholm stock exchange we propose that a prolific mechanism in tie formation is that of peerreferral. The results indicate that such a mechanism is present, generating multiple interlocks between boards