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 aim of this Master´s thesis is to examine which type of regime the state Iran is. There has been much research on this issue and the discussion is not over yet. I have departed from three theoretical perspectives in order to understand which type of regime the Middle Eastern nation is: theocracy, democracy and hybrid regime. The theocratic regimetype is composed by David L. Websters archeological theory about governments ruled by God.

This thesis is an attempt to shed light on how the authors of the Swedish Government Official Report, SoU 1999:83, speak about how the globalization affects democracy. The method used is critical discourse analysis and ideological analysis, with the main emphasis on the former. The results of the analysis are then interpreted with central parts of Jürgen Habermas? The theory of communicative action. One of the main conclusions is that an absolute majority of the authors, talk about how the globalization affects democracy in terms of the economic market and the European union.

This essay concerns the issue of democracy and judicial review. The main focus is on the justification of both a positive and a negative attitude towards judicial review, and the values these justifications are based on. The analysis is made by textual analysis of four authors with different opinions of the subject matter: Robert Dahl and Jeremy Waldron who has a negative attitude towards judicial review, and Erwin Chemerinsky and Ronald Dworkin who are positive about it. In the analysis an analytic frame is used which consists of different dimensions and aspects of the problem of democracy and judicial review. The study shows that there are important differences in democratic values between a positive and a negative justification of judicial review.

In an effort to strengthen democracy in the union, the EU in 2005 took a new approach to communications policy to reach out to the citizens. The strategic document "Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate" was accompanied by two other documents, and the three of them were the core of this policy. Both democracy and communications work means at EU level a higher complexity than in the nation-state arena. Objective of this study is to examine how the implementation of Plan D has turned out in a democracy renewal perspective. To achieve that answers are sought to questions concerning the goals of Plan D, how they are still present today, what happened in practice regarding the efforts that are highlighted, and how the substance of the activities can be judged from a democratic theory perspective.

The aim of this thesis is to illustrate the content of the democratic values tolerance, personal development and political equality, in relation to the Swedish school?s systems fundamental values, and from there problematize the schools approach towards the Sweden Democrats. By using a qualitative text analysis upon the party program of Sweden Democrats, we have been able to fulfill the aim of the thesis. We have motivated and defined our chosen democracy values from the schools fundamental values and from democracy theory. With the use of an analyze schedule we have been able to go through with the interpretation and analyze of the party program of the Sweden Democrats.

What role should science play in democracy? Political scientists often assume that it is possible to demarcate between ?instrumental? and ?moral? knowledge, and argue that citizens and/or politicians should use their moral knowledge to agree upon political goals and then apply the instrumental knowledge of scientists to achieve them. This straightforward view is challenged by writers in science studies, who identify three major problems in the use of science in democracy: uncertainty, risk and hidden values. They suggest that these problems could be solved through citizen participation.In this essay I perform an analysis of the internal logic of their suggestion. Is it likely that citizen participation enhances the democratic decision making process so as to reduce the problems? The internal analysis shows that it is rational to advocate citizen participation by reasons of legitimacy.

Local politicians are key actors in the democratic system and their ideas concerning democracy plays a central role in local democratic politics. The study's point of departure is the notion that local politicians are dependent of coherence between practice and theory concerning democracy and in the study of their ideas we acquire knowledge about the democratic practice.This study examines the local politicians? view of Swedish democracy and explores the logic of the discourse that makes statements concerning democracy possible. Twenty local politicians have been interviewed and from the material a discourse have been established through the use of formulation of problems and cause, nodal points and chains of analogy which is compared with democratic ideals.The study comes to the conclusion that a hegemonic discourse exists, in which central nodal points are representative and listening. The idea of the representative system is hegemonic and is based in the liberal democratic ideal although the view of the citizens rather can be traced to the radical, communitarian and deliberative ideal.

AbstractTheoryWhich education model has the ultimate learning potential? According to Olga Dysthe a varied education predominated by a dialogical nature is the best way of teaching.PurposeMy main purpose in this essay has been to investigate three different ways of education models and decide, on the basis of Dysthes? model, whether they can be classified as a monological or a dialogical model.I have also investigated if the thesis of Dysthes, ?The teachers view of knowledge determines the choice of teaching method?, is anchored in the reality.Furthermore, I have surveyed how the teachers educate concerning democracy. For example, on the basis of certain rules, are all sudents able to make the selves heard in a classroom that is characterized as dialogical? In such a classroom the teacher works whith activities to involve everyone and according to Dysthe, democracy is an attitude rather than a political system. Democracy is necessary in a classroom that is classified as dialogical.ResultThe essay is exclusively qualitative and builds upon interviews with three teachers on different upper secondary social schools witin the Gothenburg area.My results indicate that the teathers way of educating totaly differs from each others and that the thesis of Dysthe can be applied on only two out of three cases.

The development that the Swedish society has experienced during the last four decades and the higher part of the population coming from foreign countries calls for a more intensive research on the situation of these groups. The purpose of this study is to find explanations of the differences in the share of immigrant politicians in Linköping and Norrköping. The starting point of the study is a model of factors assumed to affect the representation of immigrants in the municipality assemblies. The immigrant composition, the municipality organization and the view of democracy of the politicians, are all assumed to affect the civic participation. The civic participation is then assumed to affect the representation of immigrants in the municipality.

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.

It seems like Swedish municipalities are dominated by beliefs that all citizen participation is good for the development of local democracy. A critic of this certainty is rising among Swedish scholars of political science. However, a critic with an ambition of such generalization is harsh. Different democratic projects contents different qualities and thereby diverse problems in the democratic process. If these democratic problems within the process can be recognized, a deeper understanding can be found and in the prolongation a strengthening of the democracy.This essay examines the democratic process of Lomma municipality's democratic project of citizen participation.

A B S T R A C TTitle: Democracy- Choice of the people or the voice of media? (Demokrati- Folkets styre eller Mediernas Makt?)Number of pages: 36Author: Carolina VallinTutor: Else NygrenCourse: Media and Communication Studies CPeriod: Autumn term 2006University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala UniversityPurpose/Aim: The purpose with this essay is to discuss which influence media has on the democracy.Material/Method: Qualitative explorative research method is used to see how much space the newspaper Dagens Nyheter gave to the parties represented in the parliament, and compare the results with the numbers the parties received in the general election 2006.Main results: This research showed similar results in the survey made of DN and the numbers the parties received in the general election 2006. Media can?t decide how people should vote in a election, but they can influence what citizens think and talk about by having the power to choose which information that shows on the agenda.Key Words: Dagens Nyheter, Agenda setting, Media, Power and Democracy..

In contemporary Sweden political participation among foreign-born Swedes is viewed as low and it is well known that foreign-born individuals do not use their voting rights to the same extent as the general population. At the same time there are numerous ethnic associations around the country who work with various activities involving political, democratic and integration issues. This study aims to study how four members of a Somali association regard, relate to and work with politics, democracy and integration. The study is based on these four people, but also on their relationship with authorities and other agencies in the community. The conclusion of this study shows in brief that the desire to participate politically is great, but that democracy and politics is accessible to all, depending on the level of language skills and what political knowledge the individual has.

Lack of political interest and will to deal with human rights violations carried out under the civil- military dictatorship, has characterized the transition and post-transition in Uruguay. The systematic use of torture, arbitrary imprisonments and forced disappearances in the relatively small country created a culture of fear that has been present through out the post-transition phase. Human rights groups have been central actors in the fight for truth and justice and against impunity. This study analyzes how these groups multiple democracy-building functions have contributed to democratic development. It also analyses how the democracy-building functions have been constrained by the political context.