The Evolution of a Responsibility to Protect in Africa : The African Unions Emerging Peace and Security Regime

The thesis focuses on, and tries to evaluate, the role that the African Union (AU) plays in protecting the peace and security on the African continent. The thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to the topic by both utilizing international relations and international law theories. The two disciplines are combined in an attempt to understand the evolution of the AU’s commitment to the pragmatist doctrine: responsibility to protect (R2P). The AU charter is considered to be the first international law document to cover R2P as it allows the AU to interfere in the internal affairs of its member states. The R2P doctrine was evolved around the notion of a need to arrive at a consensus in regard to the right to intervene in the face of humanitarian emergencies. A part of the post-Cold War shift in UN behaviour has been to support local solutions to local problems. Hereby the UN acts in collaboration with regional organizations, such as the AU, to achieve the shared aspirations to maintain international peace and security without getting directly involved on the ground. The R2P takes a more holistic and long-term approach to interventions by including an awareness of the need to address the root causes of the crisis in order to prevent future resurrections of conflicts. The doctrine also acknowledges the responsibility of the international community and the intervening parties to actively participate in the rebuilding of the post-conflict state. This requires sustained and well planned support to ensure the development of a stable society.While the AU is committed to implementing R2P, many of the AU’s members are struggling, both ideologically and practically, to uphold the foundations on which legitimate intervention rests, such as the protection of human rights and good governance. The fact that many members are also among the poorest countries in the world adds to the challenges facing the AU. A lack of human and material resources leads to a situation where few countries are willing, or able, to support a long-term commitment to humanitarian interventions. Bad planning and unclear mandates also limit the effectiveness of the interventions. This leaves the AU strongly dependent on regional powerbrokers such as Nigeria and South Africa, which in itself creates new problems in regard to the motivations behind interventions. The current AU charter does not provide sufficient checks and balances to ensure that national interests are not furthered through humanitarian interventions. The lack of resources within the AU also generates worries over what pressure foreign nations and other international actors apply through donor funding. It is impossible for the principle of “local solutions for local problems? to gain ground while this donor conditionality exists.The future of the AU peace and security regime is not established since it still is a work in progress. The direction that these developments will take depends on a wide verity of factors, many of which are beyond the immediate control of the AU.

Sjuksköterskestudenters upplevelse av den kliniska färdighetsträningen på Kompetenscenter : Fokusgruppsintervjuer med sjuksköterskestuderande

Syfte: Syfte med denna studie var att belysa hur sjuksköterskestudenter upplevde den kliniska färdighetsträningen på Kompetenscenter. Metod: Den genomfördes som en empirisk studie med kvalitativ ansats där två fokusgruppsintervjuer med fem sjuksköterskestuderande i vardera utfördes. Deltagarna var mellan 22 och 30 år. Materialet analyserades med hjälp av kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: I analysen framkom ett tema, tre kategorier och tio subkategorier. Studenternas upplevelser speglade ett behov av att lärandemiljön, lärarna och undervisningen bör ha en verklighetsanknytning. Studenterna upplevde den fysiska miljön som autentiskt vilket var viktigt för dem. De framhöll även att läromaterialet bör vara verklighetstroget, vara av god kvalitet och finnas i tillräckligt antal. Studenterna uttryckte behov av trygghet och framhöll vikten av en god relation med läraren. De uttryckte även behov av samstämmiga lärare och poängterade behov att metoder och rutiner som lärs ut skulle vara enhetliga och baseras på aktuell evidens. För att läraren skulle uppfattas trovärdig framhöll de att vederbörande bör ha en verklighetsanknytning. De underströk vikten av att övningarna skulle upplevas verkliga och vara relevanta för det kommande yrket. Studenterna önskade interprofessionellt lärande då de trodde det kunde öka känslan av sammanhang och verklighet. Konklusion: Studenternas upplevelser av den kliniska färdighetsträningen på KC gav uttryck för en verklighetsförankrad lärandemiljö. Studenterna uttryckte behov av att övningarna skulle var evidensbaserade och upplevas verkliga då det ökade deras förmåga att tillägna sig kunskaper i den kliniska färdighetsträningen. 

Immigration, security and the public debate on US language policy : a critical discourse analysis of language attitudes in the United States of America

The narrative of the United States is of a "nation of immigrants" in which the language shift patterns of earlier ethnolinguistic groups have tended towards linguistic assimilation through English. In recent years, however, changes in the demographic landscape and language maintenance by non-English speaking immigrants, particularly Hispanics, have been perceived as threats and have led to calls for an official English language policy.This thesis aims to contribute to the study of language policy making from a societal security perspective as expressed in attitudes regarding language and identity originating in the daily interaction between language groups. The focus is on the role of language and American identity in relation to immigration. The study takes an interdisciplinary approach combining language policy studies, security theory, and critical discourse analysis. The material consists of articles collected from four newspapers, namely USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle between April 2006 and December 2007.Two discourse types are evident from the analysis namely Loyalty and Efficiency. The former is mainly marked by concerns of national identity and contains speech acts of security related to language shift, choice and English for unity. Immigrants are represented as dehumanised, and harmful. Immigration is given as sovereignty-related, racial, and as war. The discourse type of Efficiency is mainly instrumental and contains speech acts of security related to cost, provision of services, health and safety, and social mobility. Immigrants are further represented as a labour resource. These discourse types reflect how the construction of the linguistic 'we' is expected to be maintained. Loyalty is triggered by arguments that the collective identity is threatened and is itself used in reproducing the collective 'we' through hegemonic expressions of monolingualism in the public space and semi-public space. The denigration of immigrants is used as a tool for enhancing societal security through solidarity and as a possible justification for the denial of minority rights. Also, although language acquisition patterns still follow the historical trend of language shift, factors indicating cultural separateness such as the appearance of speech communities or the use of minority languages in the public space and semi-public space have led to manifestations of intolerance. Examples of discrimination and prejudice towards minority groups indicate that the perception of worth of a shared language differs from the actual worth of dominant language acquisition for integration purposes. The study further indicates that the efficient working of the free market by using minority languages to sell services or buy labour is perceived as conflicting with nation-building notions since it may create separately functioning sub-communities with a new cultural capital recognised as legitimate competence. The discourse types mainly represent securitising moves constructing existential threats. The perception of threat and ideas of national belonging are primarily based on a zero-sum notion favouring monolingualism. Further, the identity of the immigrant individual is seen as dynamic and adaptable to assimilationist measures whereas the identity of the state and its members are perceived as static. Also, the study shows that debates concerning language status are linked to extra-linguistic matters. To conclude, policy makers in the US need to consider the relationship between four factors, namely societal security based on collective identity, individual/human security, human rights, and a changing linguistic demography, for proposed language intervention measures to be successful.

Are empathy and compassion bad for the professional social worker?

Recent studies have shown that social workers and other professional helpers who work with traumatized individuals run a risk of developing compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress. Some researchers have hypothesized that helpers do this as a result of feeling too much empathy or too much compassion for their clients, thereby implying that empathy and compassion may be bad for the professional social worker. This paper investigates these hypotheses. Based on a review of current research about empathy and compassion it is argued that these states are not the causes of compassion fatigue. Hence, it is argued that empathy and compassion are not bad for the professional social worker in the sense that too much of one or the other will lead to compassion fatigue.

Professional and Non-Professional Written Travel Texts – Do They Have Common Features? : A Comparative Investigation on Travel Texts on Trysil, Norway

This study aims to investigate possible distinctions between professional and non-professional written travel texts all treating the same destination: the Norwegian ski resort Trysil. The study will investigate to what extent the different texts correlate with the genre of travel texts, as the travel texts are treated as personal narratives, and how they conform to a given structure for narratives and with guidelines for professional writers. Furthermore, the investigation aims to explore to what extent there are similarities and differences between the texts regarding the given structure. The texts will first be analysed and organized separately by macrorules and a news schema that are constructed specifically for these sorts of texts, in order to reveal their discourse structure, and then compared to each other. As the discourse structure of the different texts is revealed, it is seen that there are certain differences between the two different text types. Finally, seen that the text types differ in their structure, this study will show that despite the fact that journalists write stories, and that non-professional written stories are narratives, they do not share the same structure, and are constructed in different ways.

A modest start, but a steady rise in research use : A longitudinal study of nurses during the first five years in professional life

Background: Newly graduated nurses are faced with a challenging work environment that may impede theirability to provide evidence-based practice. However, little is known about the trajectory of registered nurses’ use ofresearch during the first years of professional life. Thus, the aim of the current study was to prospectively examinethe extent of nurses’ use of research during the first five years after undergraduate education and specifically assesschanges over time.Method: Survey data from a prospective cohort of 1,501 Swedish newly graduated nurses within the nationalLANE study (Longitudinal Analyses of Nursing Education and Entry in Worklife) were used to investigate perceiveduse of research over the first five years as a nurse. The dependent variables consisted of three single itemsassessing instrumental, conceptual, and persuasive research use, where the nurses rated their use on a five-pointscale, from ‘never’ (1) to ‘on almost every shift’ (5). These data were collected annually and analyzed bothdescriptively and by longitudinal growth curve analysis.Results: Instrumental use of research was most frequently reported, closely followed by conceptual use, withpersuasive use occurring to a considerably lower extent. The development over time showed a substantial generalupward trend, which was most apparent for conceptual use, increasing from a mean of 2.6 at year one to 3.6 atyear five (unstandardized slope +0.25). However, the descriptive findings indicated that the increase started onlyafter the second year. Instrumental use had a year one mean of 2.8 and a year five mean of 3.5 (unstandardizedslope +0.19), and persuasive use showed a year one mean of 1.7 and a year five mean of 2.0 (unstandardized slope+0.09).Conclusion: There was a clear trend of increasing research use by nurses during their first five years of practice.The level of the initial ratings also indicated the level of research use in subsequent years. However, it took morethan two years of professional development before this increase ‘kicked in.’ These findings support previousresearch claiming that newly graduated nurses go through a ‘transition shock,’ reducing their ability to useresearch findings in clinical work.

Self-reported conflict management competence among nursing students on the point of graduating and registered nurses with professional experience

Objective: It has been shown that specific competence is necessary for preventing and managing conflicts in healthcare settings. The aim of this descriptive and correlation study was to investigate and compare the self-reported conflict management competence (CMC) of nursing students who were on the point of graduating (NSPGs), and the CMC of registered nurses (RNs) with professional experience. Methods: The data collection, which consisted of soliciting answers to items measuring CMC in the Nurse Professional Competence (NPC) Scale, was performed as a purposive selection of 11 higher education institutions (HEIs) in Sweden. Three CMC items from the NPC Scale were answered by a total of 569 nursing students who were on the point of graduating and 227 RN registered nurses with professional experience. Results: No significant differences between NSPGs and RNs were found, and both groups showed a similar score pattern, with the lowest score for the item: “How do you perceive your ability to develop the group and strengthen competence in conflict management and problem-solving, based on knowledge of group dynamics?”. RNs with long professional experience (>24 months) rated their overall CMC as significantly better than RNs with short (<24 months) professional experience did (p = .05). NSPGs who had experience of international studies during their nursing education reported higher CMC, compared with those who did not have this experience (p = .03). RNs who reported a high degree of utilisation of CMC during the previous month scored higher regarding self-reported overall CMC (p < .0001). Conclusions: Experience of international studies during nursing education, or long professional experience, resulted in higher self-reported CMC. Hence, the CMC items in the NPC Scale can be suitable for identifying self-reported conflict management competence among NSPGs and RNs