Facilitated by the breakthrough of the internet, new ways of organizing internet-based projects that harness the power of the crowds are becoming increasingly common. Today there are ways of using the crowd as paid labour, as funders of your new project ventures and even for helping scientists doing science. Staying true to its traditional principles of objectivity and trustworthiness while asking the crowd to contribute, crowd generated ?Citizen Science? does not provide even the slightest amount of pay in exchange for the time and effort put in by their contributors. Surely there can not be many people willing to do such a thing voluntarily? Actually, practice is showing the exact opposite with contributions counted in their millions among the more popular Citizen Science projects.

How effective is consumer power? Can consumers regulate corporate behavior?And if so is the case, could the mechanisms where consumers regulate corporatebehavior have any democratic value to contribute with? These are the questionsthat this master's thesis comprehends with. The purpose of this writing is toconstruct a theory of consumer power that is compatible with democratic theory,this in order to contribute to the ongoing discussion within the discipline ofpolitical science about the third democratic transformation. A discussion that hasbeen actualized due to the democratic deficit created by the growing corporatepower and the shift of power from state to private enterprises. Besides showingfor a parallel between the democratic mechanisms that exists in the relationbetween citizens and state on the one hand, and the consumers and corporationson the other hand, this paper argues that consumers do have a great potential inregulating corporate behavior towards a higher social responsibility andawareness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the social worker?s perspective on working for the government as a professional in care of children, in relation to the family's right to self determination. The essay's empirical material is gathered from qualitative, semi-structured interviews with social workers who work with children and youth in communities and districts in Skåne and Stockholm City, Sweden. The analysis was conducted in line with theories of social constructivism. The results and analysis show that the interviewed social workers did not believe that the state has too much power over the citizen.

The possibility and the right to be able to communicate with municipalities or other state companies and politicians are natural for the Swedish citizens. However, they may be unaware that this communication process is called citizen dialogue.Today there are so many ways to communicate; one-way communication is not possible in the same way as before. It is above all social media such as Facebook, which has opened the gates one could only dream of.  Via a medium such as Facebook creates a strong citizen dialogue in which the municipality and citizens communicate openly and ask questions and give response.The purpose of this study is to find out how Karlstad?s municipality uses, and maintains, citizen dialogue on Facebook. What are the guidelines and how do the municipality use these? In this paper a qualitative expert interview and a qualitative content analysis has been used to answer the purpose of the essay.

Facilitated by the breakthrough of the internet, new ways of organizing internet-based projects that harness the power of the crowds are becoming increasingly common. Today there are ways of using the crowd as paid labour, as funders of your new project ventures and even for helping scientists doing science. Staying true to its traditional principles of objectivity and trustworthiness while asking the crowd to contribute, crowd generated ?Citizen Science? does not provide even the slightest amount of pay in exchange for the time and effort put in by their contributors. Surely there can not be many people willing to do such a thing voluntarily? Actually, practice is showing the exact opposite with contributions counted in their millions among the more popular Citizen Science projects.

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.

This thesis aims at analysing conflicts between different ideals of democracy, using the example of a newly implemented citizen´s initiative reform. This reform gives citizens the right to make policy proposals to Swedish municipal councils. The proposals are to be handled in the same way as proposals from the municipal council members. An ideology analysis of various government documents as well as of an official state study (SOU) is carried out to identify and discuss the ideals of democracy that underpin the reform. The analysis is based on participatory democracy and electoral democracy theory and Arnstein's Eight Rungs on the Ladder of Citizen Participation is used to discuss different types of participation by the citizens.

The aim of this thesis is to examine whether law reforms in the detailed planning process can be an aspect that gets in conflict with the citizens rights to participate in the Swedish planning through dialogue, and how five chosen municipalities are working with citizen participation. To be able to answer the aim of the thesis a literature study and five semi-structured interviews was performed in purpose to get wide-ranging information from municipal officials working with detailed planning handling. Law changes that aims to make the detailed planning process more efficient has been implemented partly to satisfy the needs of dwellings since the detailed planning process among master builders seems to be slow and inefficient, which to the them means higher costs. The requirement on having a detailed planning program was taken away when the new planning law was adopted year 2011. The planning program was including a moment of citizen dialogue. The case studied municipalities have not been affected in this law change arguing that it?s still possible to bring a program if needed.

Citizens? interaction with governments is an area with unique implications for channel management. Governments need to take the citizens perspective into further consideration in order to be successful in delivering high-quality e-services. This paper aims to determine if a categorization of citizen-initiated contacts from a citizen-centric perspective can be a valuable basis for decisions regarding e-service development. The study consisted of three steps.

At the moment, democracy enhancing projects can be seen everywhere on the municipal level. The purpose of this thesis is to explain how the city of Lund takes on this challenge, why they have chosen to carry out citizen councils and if these are a good way to intensify democracy and open communication channels between citizens, the administration and the elected officials.The theoretical framework consists of seven arguments for gaining citizen influence on policy, and as a counterweight three critical arguments that opponents of participatory democracy often use are added.After a survey over both the Swedish national trends in municipal renewal and the last years work in Lund, the analysis goes on showing that most of the arguments point to the disadvantage of the citizen councils. Even though legitimacy possibly is enhanced by the project, there are probably better ways to open up for more communication and intensify democracy in the local community..

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 essay examines how public planners and the inhabitants of södra Gårda relate to the physical planning of the area and to the demolition versus the preservation of the quarters Eken and Cedern, and how the dialogue between planners and citizens appears to be. How do the planners and policymakers relate to citizen participation in urban planning, and how is participatory planning carried out in the legislation, rhetorically and in practice. Former research indicates a distinct gap between rhetorics, legislation and actions in practice regarding citizen participation in planning, which is why we find it an interesting topic for further research. The essay aims to highlight the different actors interests and visions of the development of the area. Which are the standpoints and arguments the different actors set out for the future visions of the area? The essay focuses on citizen participation in urban planning in the city of Gothenburg.

We have studied how power is portrayed in Swedish journals by analyzing eight portraits of Swedish persons with economic or political power. We have studied how they and their power are described by the journalist in text and picture. We wanted to see which picture the journalist shows of people with power, what properties they are given by the journalist and how this picture is shown by the texts and the pictures. We have also looked if there are any differences between people with political power and people with economic power. We have under our studies noticed that the persons with power are described as very successful and special and this picture are shown in a very clear and unproblematic way..

This essay is about power in the classroom. It is about the power dimension of the student-teacher relationships that arise in that space. The overall aim has been to investigate which categories are fruitful in a power analysis of these relationships. My aim has therefore been to develop power categories and to use them to identify and to categorise cases of power interaction that take place between those particular actors in that particular setting.In order to gather material for my study I have both read literature that approaches the study of the student-teacher relationships from a power perspective and done a series of observations in a high school.My theoretical frame comprises a concept of power and a series of power categories. These categories include strength, authority, inducement, coercion, violence, resistance as well as to possess power, to have power, to exert power, the scope of power and the base of power.