This report is a case study of ?citizen forums? in the municipality of Uppsala. These forums are arranged to make people participate more in local politics. The aim of this study is to find out if the opinions and the wishes coming from the Citizens are later involved in the planning process etc made by the authorities. The aim is also to explain why or why not the opinions from the Citizens are of any importance.My empirical data come from interviews that I have made with seven different respondents, both politicians and civil servants.

In the new media society, social media has become an important part of many organizations' daily lives. Organizations, whether public or private, must be where their audience is and many times, these can be found on social media channels like Facebook. Leading researchers in the fields of crisis communication and relationship management believe that social media is a great tool for managing relationships between an organization and its' public, whether it's before, during or after a crisis.The purpose of this study is to examine how the Karlstad municipality use Facebook to manage civic relations before, during and after a crisis. The municipality's approach will be compared to the Citizens' experiences of the municipality's communication in different stages of a crisis.The theoretical framework used in this essay is the research on crisis communication and relationship management. How these two frameworks can be integrated with social media like Facebook, is an important part of understanding how the Karlstad municipality make use of Facebook to manage civic relations and communicate before, during and after a crisis.The empirical study consists of a qualitative interview, two qualitative content analysis and an online survey.

The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned Citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if Citizens panels is a possible way to involve Citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the Citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

In the new media society, social media has become an important part of many organizations' daily lives. Organizations, whether public or private, must be where their audience is and many times, these can be found on social media channels like Facebook. Leading researchers in the fields of crisis communication and relationship management believe that social media is a great tool for managing relationships between an organization and its' public, whether it's before, during or after a crisis.The purpose of this study is to examine how the Karlstad municipality use Facebook to manage civic relations before, during and after a crisis. The municipality's approach will be compared to the Citizens' experiences of the municipality's communication in different stages of a crisis.The theoretical framework used in this essay is the research on crisis communication and relationship management. How these two frameworks can be integrated with social media like Facebook, is an important part of understanding how the Karlstad municipality make use of Facebook to manage civic relations and communicate before, during and after a crisis.The empirical study consists of a qualitative interview, two qualitative content analysis and an online survey.

The aim and research questions of this study are concerned about how, and what kind of, problems and subjects that Citizens raise during verbal interaction with politicians and officials in the field of participatory democracy. The theoretical framework of the study dominates by theories with a positive approach towards participatory democracy, but there is also a broader discussion on the phenomenon?s strengths and weaknesses.The case in focus of the study is a specific phenomenon of participatory democracy created by the municipality of Växjö. The empirical material that is analysed is consisted of written text based on the verbal interaction from these meetings between Citizens and politicians/officials.The outcome of the study shows that most of the verbal interaction was held between Citizens and politicians/officials in a vertical direction and that a major part of the responsibility concerning the raised subjects is estimated to be in the hands of the latter part. In the light of under what circumstances the meetings are practised, the democratic and collective minded performance of the Citizens is argued to be in good condition, despite the dominating vertical interaction and estimation of trust..

The representative democracy has become weakened during the last decades. At the same time the United Nations declared at the Rio de Janeiro meeting in 1992 that environmental problems can best be solved by involvement of all concerned Citizens in decision-making. The main purpose of this study has been to examine if Citizens panels is a possible way to involve Citizens in environmental decision-making and what the outcomes can be. Furthermore the study has investigated what the participation has contributed to environmental politics and how representative the results have been. This has been carried out by investigating the Piteåpanel in the municipality of Piteå by conducting interviews.The result of the study shows that the involvement of the Citizens in the decision-making influenced the environmental politics of the municipality.

The European Union is seen as democratic, and one of the criteria for a democratic decision process is that it must be fully transparent for the Citizens. That is the only way for them to make their own decisions about political issues, and it is only possible as long as the Citizens have access to relevant and reliable information. However, this is not always the case within the European Union, since it is often difficult to get a hold of different documents of the institutions, and since the civil servants to a great extent are forbidden to give away any information..

The main purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent municipalities in Sweden use democratic innovations to include Citizens in the decision making process. Along there are three research questions:? What different forms of democracy innovations are Swedish municipalities applying in order to increase the civic participation between elections and what forms are dominant?? What potential influence in decision-making are Citizens getting through these democratic innovations based on the results?? Based on the results ? in what ways is the democracy innovations used in municipalities challenging representative democracy? The method used to fulfill the purpose and answer the research questions is a web survey including 287 of 290 (in total) municipal websites. The theoretic framework includes a model which is called ?Smith?s ladder of participation? and is influenced by the research of Graham Smith and Sherry Arnstein.

Modern democracies rest on a foundation of values essential to their prosperity. Two of those values are freedom of speech and political equality. To many, these values appear to coexist effortlessly. However, what this thesis aims to expose are some of the problems that quickly arise when attempts to interpret the values fail.The thesis investigates a specific US Supreme Court ruling called Citizens United. The ruling enabled corporations and unions to use their own treasuries for unlimited independent political expenditures.

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the Citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow Citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

Abstract?Political participation by the citizen?- Citizen proposals in Karlstad municipalityEssay in Political Science, C-levelAuthor: Tobias GustafssonTutor: Michele MichelettiIn Sweden the political parties are losing more and more of their members. That in combination with a tendency that the participation in the elections is getting lower is a problem for the representative and parliamentary political system in Sweden.In order to strengthen the democracy in Sweden and to make the gap between the Citizens and the elected smaller there has been some democracy-projects. The purpose of these democracy-projects is to make the political participation by the Citizens, between the elections, higher. One of them is ?citizen proposals to the municipality?.The purpose of this essay is to examine this democracy-project in order to see what influences it might have on the local democracy.

Abstract?Political participation by the citizen?- Citizen proposals in Karlstad municipalityEssay in Political Science, C-levelAuthor: Tobias GustafssonTutor: Michele MichelettiIn Sweden the political parties are losing more and more of their members. That in combination with a tendency that the participation in the elections is getting lower is a problem for the representative and parliamentary political system in Sweden.In order to strengthen the democracy in Sweden and to make the gap between the Citizens and the elected smaller there has been some democracy-projects. The purpose of these democracy-projects is to make the political participation by the Citizens, between the elections, higher. One of them is ?citizen proposals to the municipality?.The purpose of this essay is to examine this democracy-project in order to see what influences it might have on the local democracy.

Citizenship information is defined as the information the citizen needs to be able to take part in and influence the society. Since it is a democratic issue that information concerning the Citizens role in society really reaches the Citizens, it is of importance to study how the Citizens proceed when they have a need for this information. The aim of this Masters thesis is to investigate how our eight informers proceed when they experience this need in a non-work situation. We performed qualitative interviews. The most important part of our interviews was the introduction of some fictitious problems to the informants.

The European Union is struggling to maintain democracy and tries to increase the participation among the Citizens in Europe. The European Citizens? Initiative, ECI, is a platform established by the European Commission to allow Citizens to propose new legislation. ?Water and sanitation are a human right! Water is a public good, not a commodity!? is the first ECI that has met the requirements.

The Swedish rules for marrying in Sweden are different for swedish Citizens and foreigners. A swedish citizen has to have permission from"Länsstyrelsen"to marry before the age of 18 but a foreigner may marry without permission at an age of 15, unless a higher age is required by the foreign law. The main question in this essay is if the swedish international law concerning the age of marriage is compatible with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the Swedish Constitution. The comparison is based on mainly two questions: Primarily the Swedish international law is discussed concerning which marrying age is good for the child. Thereafter it is discussed whether it is discriminating to have different marrying ages for swedish and foreign Citizens.