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Decentralization and support to local democracy are keystones in Sweden's development cooperation. This cooperation is channelled through local partnerships in order to create fora for exchange of experiences of local self-governance and to strengthen democratic institutions on a sub-national level. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of, and to future research on, decentralization from a development perspective. It also seeks to constructively examine how to design local partnerships, in consideration of the Swedish government's overall priorities for development cooperation with different categories of countries. Beside an empirical overview of a number of countries' systems of local government, the study contains an analysis based on decentralization and governance theories, combined with the normative implications expressed in the Swedish government's strategies and priorities. One important finding is that decentralization tends to be used as an instrument to reach a wide range of greatly differing goals. National contexts is of course one important factor affecting the decentralization processes, but also the aims and motives of actors or group of stakeholders. The local level provides although a framework within which democratic governance, and other desirable goals, can be realized. Local partnerships can also be an instrument for cooperation, sharing of experiences and support for participation and democratic development, especially within closed and centralized political systems.

This thesis intends to examine the role of the city, Dublin, in the Irish economic growth during the 1990s. It is a case study where Dublin is compared with current theories on post modern cities as growth machines and increasingly prominent actors in the global context. The study has an interdisciplinary approach but focuses on political science issues such as power distribution, global-local governance and local political organisation. It is a theory driven study that also intends to add aspects to the understanding of the cities of our time. I argue that Dublin has faced a lot of changes during the last decades in accordance with the post modern city. These are consequences of the increased globalisation, interurban competition and new conditions in the national economy. At the early stage of the Irish economic boom, Dublin had a passive role and functioned as a receiver of foreign direct investments that was promoted by the national business favourable policies. At a later stage Dublin had a more active role in maintaining the growth, by responding to the increased demand of skilled labour, infrastructure and competitiveness.

1922 startades en kvinnlig medborgarskola på Fogelstad i Södermanland. Initiativet togs av en grupp namnkunniga kvinnor som ansåg att kvinnorna med sin nyvunna rösträtt behövde tränas i medborgarskap. Samtidigt fanns även andra sammanhang och med syfte att främja kvinnors deltagande i politiken och samhällslivet. Vissa av dessa, nämligen tidningen Tidevarvet, Frisinnade kvinnor, Socialdemokratiska kvinnoförbundet samt sakfrågorna jordfrågan, fredsfrågan och befolkningsfrågan hade kopplingar till Fogelstad. Dessutom satt ett antal kvinnor med anknytning till Fogelstad i riksdagen. Riksdagen och skolan utgör därför tillsammans med ovan beskrivna organisationer och sakfrågor noderna i det nätverk som vi kartlägger. Det som utgör länkarna i nätverket är att samma kvinnor var engagerade i flera av dessa sammanhang. Via egna representanter i riksdagen skapade nätverket kring Fogelstad förbättrade förutsättningar för kvinnorna att påverka de politiska besluten. Dessutom innehade kvinnor från nätverket andra betydande poster i samhället. Det finns en rad exempel på fall där det överlappande engagemanget hade betydelse i arbetet för kvinnors deltagande i samhället.