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.

In a global context the traditional Democratic process is facing new challenges. Scholars are talking about a transition from government to governance, where local and regional networks as well as international collaboration are an important part in how regional policy is produced and implemented. In this paper the processes in regional projects funded by the European Union are considered, and related to the traditional Democratic process. The study has been fulfilled through informant interviews with representatives from four EU-projects. The interviews are supplemented by a qualitative text analysis of current statutes.

The aim of this study is to illuminate and discuss a case of political steering, specifically Managment-By-Objectives (MBO) in Swedish municipalities, from a democratic perspective. The essay examines a discrepancy between MBO in the Swedish municipalities and democratic theory.To fulfil the aim of the study one leading politician and one leading civil servant from five municipalities have been interviewed on this matter. This material is discussed in the light of a democratic theory constructed specifically for this essay. The democratic theory consists of three main democratic values in the Democratic process: debate, transparence and the ability to demand political accountability.The main conclusion is that there is a contradiction in the use of MBO and the democratic values of debate, transparence and the ability to demand political accountability. MBO has resulted in a lack of debate and transparency and furthermore, it has made it increasingly more difficult to demand political accountability..

The purpose of this essay is to examine Egyptian university students´attitudes about the Egyptian education system´s ability to support a Democratic process in Egypt. In order to carry out my study, scientific books and articles have been read and interviews have been made among Egyptian university students. The interviews contained questions about the Egyptian education system´s impact on the Democratic process in Egypt and which impact the Egyptian education system has had on the Egyptian revolution.The conclusion drawn from my study is that Egyptian university students find the contemporary Egyptian education system based on authoritarian rules and with a lack of democratic values. The Egyptian university students believe that to establish democratic institutions in Egypt, the Egyptian citizens need a better understanding about democratic values. However, some of the students believe that the democracy that should be established in Egypt, must be based on Islamic values and to succeed with that, Islamic studies must play a greater part in the Egyptian education.When it comes to the Egyptian education system´s impact on the Egyptian revolution the Egyptian university students´opinions were somehow divided. .

AbstractSince democracy was developed in the ancient Greece it has come to be used within a small city state, within the national state and as today used within a bigger perspective. After the end of the second world war political leaders wanted to make sure that there would never be a war between European countries again. Now, about 60 years later this type of cooperation now involves 27 of the European countries and goes under the name of the Euroapean Union. This means that democracy is no longer used just within the nation state, but within a big organisation that is responsible for almost 500 million Europeans lives. This also means that the European Union need to make some institutional reforms to be able to handle all the future challenges.

This thesis examines the conditions for participation in the decision making process of a possible mine establishment in Storuman municipality in the north of Sweden. This is done through a case study where the main actors are the mining company Nickel Mountain AB, the municipality Storuman and the Sami village Vapsten. As a theoretical framework Cecilia Eriksson?s division of democratic theories is used as a starting point. Methods as described in deliberative democratic theory, such as discussion by effected community members, are seen as a method within the participatory democratic tradition, not a theory of its own.

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.

The aim of the following paper has been to test the democratic peace theory through applying it on the conflict between Russia and Georgia in 2008.  This to either falsify the theory or come to the conclusion that the states? democracy was not satisfactory in regards to the definition of liberal democracy. The questions asked are: Was Russia and Georgia democratic states? Is democracy a protection from war? And which aspects of the liberal democratic theory, if any, were not satisfactory in either of the countries? The results show that the democratic peace theory is valid in this case and that neither one of the states were democratic.

This essay focus on the European Union and its democracy both from a national perspec­tive and from an international perspective. Furthermore, the essay center on the con­cept of democratic deficit, this in order to study the European Union´s status regarding the democratic legitimacy. This study intends to nuance the problems that previous research and previous researchers have de­fined as democratic deficits in the European Union and ends up in conducting a textual anal­ysis of the latest European Union treaty, the Lisbon Treaty.The aim is that by using previous research on the democratic deficit in the European Union examine whether the Lisbon Treaty has enhanced the EU's position regarding democratic legitimacy. In other words, my study aims to identify what the deficit is and if it exists.The results show that the Lisbon Treaty has been trying to improve the democratic legitimacy and that some practical adjustments have been made, but it also show that there is much that still can be improved before citizens have full democratic rights..

The idea that I put forward in this thesis concerns the democratic system and the threat from discoursive impact on its core values. I focus my normative analysis on three of these democratic values: transparency, accountability and influence ? and what democratic problems the discoursive impact causes in conflict with them. I have used a critical discourse theory to define discourse and discoursive impact, by focusing on the process of discourse, rather than its nature. I deal with the political structure where I claim that the essential relation between citizen and politician is disrupted, due to lack of information and the imminent problems of the existing network society.

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.

Abstract:The purpose of this study is to examine what actually makes Russia an incomplete democracy, despite of all the formal democratic institutions and legal democratic rights.The research method used for this essay has been qualitative case study, which strives to answer two research questions: Which democratic principles are not respected in Russia? How does the executive power control the political arena? The theoretical framework used for this study consists of a model based on Dahls Polyarchy theory and the Rule of Law concept. The conclusions points out that very little have formally changed in Russia regarding democratic rights and the constitution. The democratic decline is due to political manoeuvres and undue political influence. There is no proper division of power and the executive powers are not controlled by a system of checks and balances.

With the increased significance of information technology (IT) in today?s society the term ?electronic democracy? (e-democracy) has gained much importance within the democracy theory. Naturally, there are several competing views on how the technology should be used for democratic purpose. One aspect of this is the somewhat revitalized claim for direct democracy in accordance with the hypothetical opportunity to finally realize it as a democratic system. The ideal of direct democracy combined with the almost total credence in the potential of technology constitute the idea of a ?push-button democracy?.

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.