Mid Sweden University

This thesis is focused on two phenomena: normative citizenship ideals and onto-logical notions of man. The study is an inductive search for different attributes to describe a variation of these phenomena. The search is conducted from several different perspectives: Current research within citizenship theory, history in a material sense, the history of political ideas, the philosophy of science and thematic analyses of important aspects of the two phenomena.

Throughout the thesis attributes are collected and sorted in order to build typologies that can define the variation.

In the end the attributes of normative citizenship ideals are sorted into three groups. The ideals are explained in three ways: why they came in to existence, how the transition from one ideal to another took place and how the idealistic content of the ideals were transformed.

The attributes of ontological notions of man are sorted into sex types and four of them are defined to have relevance for an existing variation today.

Finally the relations between the two typologies are analyzed and ten combinations are found to be possibly useful in studies of contemporary societal contexts.

Together, the results are contributing to theories of citizenship.

Apart from the results of the study it is argued for a broader definition of politics in political science, for more specific ways to handle egalitarian questions in the field rights of man / citizenship rights and finally against the possibility of a neutral order, for example a neutral state.

Many Swedish municipalities are in crises. How does a municipality act in crises and how can this action be explained? That is the question this case study deals with in the sparsely populated municipality Berg in the county of Jämtland. The case study findings consist of about 40 interviews and other evidence. The findings were analysed in an iterative explanation building process. Seven different theoretic perspectives were used in the process. Leading theories in the field of policy analyses largely failed to explain the situation and acting. Through a new theoretic governance perspective the analyses went further to the field of democratic theory, which was more fruitful. The main problem emerged under the surface of the empiric findings. It consisted of two completely different views of what a municipality really is � a unit in public production of services or a way for people to locally and together try to realize what they regard as common good. The explanation was found in a conflict between real structural forces and actual conditions which results in a conflict oriented discourse and a non-action situation. The future holds two possible courses: A new period of creating fewer and larger municipalities´or a new road toward local participatory democracy.