This study is about youths, democracy and school. It seeks to describe and problemize the school's role in the democratic society. Firstly, using Social Representations Theory, 44 upper secondary shool pupils? representations, or conceptions, of democracy are described and discussed. These representations are then analyzed in relation to the school's role in the democratic society, as it is described by different researchers.The results show that many of the youths have a rather simplistic and abstract view of democracy, describing it only in terms of general principles and the main features of the representative democracy, such as voting in national elections.

The study aims to investigate student participation as a tool for democratic development in secondary school from a student perspective. Furthermore, students' perceptions of the school's work with student participation in formal and informal contexts are also investigated, with basis in the teaching structure. The results are based on interviews conducted with students who all attend the same class in their last year of high school. Subsequently, an analysis is made based mainly on three different theories: democracy, curricula and sociocultural theory. The result shows that students feel that they are able to practice student participation but the amount of influence they get differs between individuals depending on devotion and commitment.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the institutional design of Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Sweden and how the design may contribute to realize central democratic goods. The study records the different PB experiences in Sweden and focuses on one particular case, which is the only case that successfully qualifies as a genuine PB-process according to international standards and definitions. To examine this, the following questions are asked: which municipalities in Sweden have implemented Participatory Budgeting? How can the institutional design of Participatory Budgeting be described and to what extent does it enable the realization of central democratic goods? To what extent does the institutional design enable the realization of the democratic goods inclusion, popular control, considered judgment and transparency? To what extent does the institutional design enable the realization of the institutional goods of efficiency and transferability?The study is based on an institutional theory of democracy. The method used is a mixed method ideal type analysis that combines document analysis, surveys and interviews.

In May 2007 a committee called ??Ansvarskommittén??, assembled by the Swedish government, came with a proposal of changing the Swedish regional structure. The committee which consisted of representatives from all the sitting parties in the parliament proposed that the present regional structure consisting of 20 county council districts and 21 counties would be reduced to between 6-9  regions called ??regionkommuner??.The purpose of this study is to analyze how the committee?s proposal balances democratic and economic values by using a qualitative method. The committee?s proposal is analyzed by a comparison in five political areas with two differentiated regional theories called old and new regionalism.

This paper is a critique of the hegemonic democracy ideal in France today, the myth of the Republic. Based on critical theory, the paper also contains a normative attempt giving the chance to subaltern groups to tell their, less often heard, version of the "truth".The theoretical foundation is the ontological narrative perspective, where identities and actions are understood as being constructed by the telling of stories. The interdependent relations of different narrative dimensions are analyzed. The power over who gets to tell the story of the "truth" is understood as decided in the interaction by dimensions of metanarrativity, public narratives, ontological narratives and conceptual narrativity. The author argues, inspired by Chantal Mouffe, that consensus is an illusion based on exclusion of those that differ.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the use of social media by the Swedish Police for democratic purposes. The idea of citizen empowerment is closely related to the development of new communication technologies such as social media. Yet many studies indicate that governmental institutions rarely make use of the assumed potentials of social media.In this study, the democratic potential of social media is derived from Habermas normative concept of deliberative participation. Operational definitions emphasize discursive equality, interactive reciprocity and external impact. The analytical framework is combined with qualitative text analysis to highlight the conditions of interaction between representatives of the Police and citizens.In conclusion: the democratic potential of social media, from a Habermasian point of view, is to a significant extent neglected at the expense of its strategic advantages.

This thesis explores the changing prerequisites for accountability in terms of Swedish arms export. The study aims to uncover what has happened with the conditions for accountability in Sweden since the responsibility for export control was transferred from the government to the public administration. By investigating how the term ?accountability? has been used in the literature of democratic theory, an abstract ideal model is being created.  Comparing the changed structural arrangements, with each other and the ideal model, it is concluded that the prerequisites for accountability now seems to be in a worse state than they were before..

Homelessness has always been and will always be a problem in every society. How should we organize the work and care for these people? There are three different types of welfare states, the liberal, the conservative and the social democratic. In the liberal welfare state the market is the supplier of the public good. In the conservative state the family and church and in the social democratic the state is the supplier of the public welfare.The Swedish welfare state has been the archetype of social democratic welfare with de principal of ?Folkhemmet? in focus.

This thesis explores the decisions behind swedish principals to permit or prohibit political parties from visiting schools. Through a series of semistructured qualitative interviews with five respondents from different high schools, insights were gathered into their motivations regarding political party visits to schools. The results indicate that principals view political party visits as significant for fostering civic engagement, aligned with the school's democratic mission. However, some principals opt to prohibit such visits due to concerns about non democratic values and potential disruptions. Practical considerations like safety, logistical issues, and conflict risks are also crucial in their decision-making, highlighting awareness of potential challenges posed by political visits.

Organizational democracy has been a popular research area in recent decades but the implementation in real organizations is slow (Kokkinidis, 2012; Verdorfer, Weber, Unter Rainer & Seyr, 2013). Several researchers (Schön Jansson, 2012; Falkheimer, Heide & Johansson, 2013) argue that communication practitioners have a key role in democratic processes and that because their job role is under constant change there are only a few modern studies regarding the subject. The purpose of this study is to illustrate how communication practitioners in private and public organizations experience their role in the process of internal communication and to what extent they are aware of, and work with internal organizational democracy.The practitioners we interviewed had a strong feeling that they were a support function for the business and the organizational management. As a result of the study it is clear that communication practitioners are very loyal to their employers and to the organization they work for. They are, therefore, not neutral in their professional role and argue that their task is to represent the management's interests.

This thesis studies three kinds of debate formats. Those are DN Debatt, SVT Debatt and Ring P1. The focus lies in the interrelations between these forums and how they interact with theri audience. Since debate is an essential tool for political and democratic practice, it is vital to study the movements and the realtions between these media formats. Some of the questions in this study are: What happens with a debate topic when it moves between the formats? In which way are the formats democratic and what does their communicative forms mean for political practice and citizen participation? The study shoes how the interpretation of a specific term can expand during a debate.

The purpose of this study is to discuss the use of social media by the Swedish Police for democratic purposes. The idea of citizen empowerment is closely related to the development of new communication technologies such as social media. Yet many studies indicate that governmental institutions rarely make use of the assumed potentials of social media.In this study, the democratic potential of social media is derived from Habermas normative concept of deliberative participation. Operational definitions emphasize discursive equality, interactive reciprocity and external impact. The analytical framework is combined with qualitative text analysis to highlight the conditions of interaction between representatives of the Police and citizens.In conclusion: the democratic potential of social media, from a Habermasian point of view, is to a significant extent neglected at the expense of its strategic advantages.

The pupose of this study is to qualitatively study how teachers at a high school work with the schools demokratic mission under the management by objectives and what the policy document says and how the students can partcipate in different issues. My question fomulations are: What does it say in the governing documents about schools democratic mission and student influence? How do teachers concretely work to implement the values of democracy and student influence? How can the class councils used as part of the school's democratic mission? The theoretical frame of the study is about the school democracy mission and the possibilities and limits.  Futhermore a brief review of the fundamental values of the school are presented, followed by how the democratic process works.I used the qualitative analysis in order to find a lot of information about a small amount. Its strength is to convey a lot of information about a small number of observations and if the material is small in size.

The legitimacy of the European Union is being questioned, and this has put focus on the democratic deficit, as the main reason for the negative outcome of the referendum about implementing the last initiated treaties of the union. In this essay the credibility of the problem solving strategy through the communication policy of the commission is being put under the scope. The objective is to treat the credibility of the solution to the main problems of the EU as an important part of how the democratic, political system works and how it deals with taking care of its? supporting and demanding channels of communication. The importance of a citizen platform to form common interests and a strictly European dialogue using media, common debates and several other possible ways to advocate this solution throughout the whole union is stressed here..

AbstractTitle: Similar but different ? Sweden Democrats and Swedish Social Democratic Party in Swedish newspapers online during 2010 (Lika men olika ? Sverigedemokraterna och Socialdemokraterna i svensk rikspress på nätet 2010).Number of pages: 35 (40 including enclosures)Author: Magnus MjöhagenTutor: Amelie HössjerCourse: Media and Communication studies CPeriod: Autumn 2010University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information and Media, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/aim: To discover any possible difference between the media report concerning The Sweden Democrats and the Swedish Social Democratic Party in Swedish news press.Material/method: A quantitative content analysis has been made with 64 articles from the homepages of the four biggest news papers in Sweden: Aftonbladet.se, Expressen.se, DN.se (Dagens Nyheter) and SvD.se (Svenska Dagbladet). The analysis focused on four themes: 1) framing in the articles, 2) impersonation in the articles, 3) the democratic task of journalism and 4) the expectations of journalism in an election campaign.Main results: The main results showed that the difference between the two parties either was nonexistent or very small. The articles were sometimes framed in specific ways, but a big amount of the articles were not framed. Impersonation occurred in about half of the cases, concerning both parties.