In 1998 the Swedish Socialist Government initiated a project in order to promote economic growth and to end the discriminating social and ethnic segregation in the greater city regions of Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmo. One of the goals of the project was and still is to promote political participation in 24 of the poorest areas of the three cities. In a quantitative analysis I evaluate whether or not the project so far has been successful in promoting a specific part of political participation, i.e. Electoral participation in communal elections. The results of the 24 poor city areas are compared with a group of 14 likewise poor city areas of major swedish cities.According to my hypothesis, general improvements of the socio-economic status of poor city areas ought to generate positive effects on Electoral participation in communal elections.

This thesis focuses on the problems involving immigrants and their voting behaviour in Sweden. We presuppose that immigrants vote in a far less extent than Swedish citizen according to general statistics. We try to explain and give solutions to this problem. To our help we use both integration theory focusing on multiculturalism and Electoral participation theories.Starting off in these two theories, we have further analyzed a number of policies issued to solve the participation dilemma. The policies were issued in order to elevate the socio-economic standards, inform citizens and close the distance between voters and politicians.Our results show that what work best is long term ventures aiming at integrating immigrants to the Swedish society.

Recent studies have reemphasized the importance of competition in democracy. An ideaoriginating from Weber: that demoeratic competition leads to more qualified leaders, has been resurrected. Research shows that democracies are more Iikely to elect leaders with a high leve l of education, and with in demoeratic states stronger competition correlates with elected politicians with higher education, more political experience and higher previous income. This study researehes whether the earrelation between greater competition and electedcandirlates with higher "Curriculum vitae-qualities" holds between electoral systems. Does a more competitive electoral system elect candirlates that score higher on such measures? Using education as a proxy forthese qualities the study traces different outcomes on education in a mixed electoral system, camparing the majoritarian (more competitive) part of the electoral system with the prop011ional (less competitive) part.

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.

In modern, Swedish political science there are different ways of looking at ?democracy?. A very common distinction is that between three groups of democratic theories: electoral democracy, participation democracy and deliberative democracy.The nowadays frequently used concept of electoral democracy is often used as synonymous with the older concept of repre­­­­sen­tative or indirect democracy ? frequently regarded as a contrast to the direct democracy of ancient Athens. However, there are also important differences.

This study aims at describing if discrepancies can be found between the rhetoric in Swedish political parties? electoral campaigns to the European Parliament elections in 2004 and their representatives? actual behavior in the European Parliament and to develop plausible explanations to these possible discrepancies. The research method that is being used is content analysis, aiming to answer four research questions regarding the electoral campaigns to the European Parliament elections in 2004 and the behavior by the parties? representatives during the following term of office. The main findings are that some discrepancies can be found regarding which questions are raised most frequently in the electoral campaigns and in the European Parliament, but that no discrepancies can be found regarding the positions taken in questions in the electoral campaigns and in the European Parliament.

Our social lives and where we live shape our choices in life. One of those choices is which party we vote for in the general election. The aim of this thesis is to see if there are any connections between the Swedish general election of 2010, demography, socioeconomic factors and geography. This is done with regression analysis and chosen variables. Another aim is to see where in Sweden the chosen variables aren?t enough to explain the results of the election.

In 2003 the parties in Sweden were invited to debate reforms of the Constitution. The purpose of this essay is to study the debate concerning reforms of the Constitution and identify values expressed by the parties. Moreover the goal of the essay is to connect the identified values to the three democratic ideals, which are; electoral democracy, participation democracy and deliberation democracy. This analyze is based on the idea analyze.The conclusion is that all parties have argued that the Swedish Constitution should be based on the democratic ideal of electoral democracy. However, the right wing parties have also argued for inflection of participations democracy and deliberation democracy in the constitution.

This thesis studies the indirect effects of Europeanization on national political parties. I argue that Europeanization has affected the way national parties operate, and communicate with the voters, by restricting the national policy space through increased economic and political integration. Furthermore, I argue that the impact of Europeanization is likely to be reflected in electoral manifestos and changed patterns of party competition. Accordingly, Europeanization is hypothesized to change party rhetoric in a cartel-like manner by diminishing voters? expectations, and also by avoiding EU-affairs in electoral manifestos. The hypothesis suggests, moreover, that Europeanization is reflected in convergence among parties regarding the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs. The purpose of the thesis is to examine to what extent the rhetoric concerning EU-affairs has changed in electoral manifestos sinceSwedenjoined the European Union in 1995.

This essay will cover the Swedish electoral system with a focus on the proportional representation andthe process involved from the conversion of votes to seats in the parliament. This process consists ofseveral methods which are created by political decisions as well as mathematical formulas and is notalways perfect in terms of equalization. An increment of six adjustment seats would have made thegeneral election of 2010 more proportioned. Despite this, the Swedish electoral system is wellconstructed and the essay will highlight areas which could be subject for improvement as well asexplaining fundamental concepts of the process..

The aim of our research in this study, which has a qualitative attempt, is to investigate participation concerning to a few co-workers in the old-age care. The co-workers experience of participation and their definition of participation, and how participation is related to our different themes. Our themes are the present and wanted assumptions, to make participation possible. Further more does this study discuss participation in relation to the themes communication, competence education and to physical and psychic health. The method we used was primary semi-structured interviews and some observations.

The aim of our research in this study, which has a qualitative attempt, is to investigate participation concerning to a few co-workers in the old-age care. The co-workers experience of participation and their definition of participation, and how participation is related to our different themes. Our themes are the present and wanted assumptions, to make participation possible. Further more does this study discuss participation in relation to the themes communication, competence education and to physical and psychic health. The method we used was primary semi-structured interviews and some observations.

This essay examines the recent electoral success of the Sweden Democrats (SD) in the Swedish municipal election in 2006 and 2010. By using statistical methods it aims to explain which of three contradicting theoretical frameworks best can explain how a populist radical right party could penetrate one of the most stable party systems in the world. The theoretical approaches tested in this essay are: a demand-side, an external supply-side and an internal supply-side approach. By using theoretically anchored proxies to determine the effect of the contradicting theoretical approaches this essay concludes that the internal supply-side explanation measuring the local party organizational ability of the SD had the most substantial effect when it comes to explaining their recent electoral success in the Swedish municipalities, as opposed to a more commonly believed demand-side driven explanation..

This paper aims to present a theoretical understanding of the emergence of extreme right- wing populist parties (ERP), and more specifically the electoral breakthrough of the ERP party, Sverigedemokraterna in the municipality of Karlskrona. By doing so the study is constructed as a theoretical framework, where the empirical material and the theoretical aspects are interwoven. This means that the theoretical framework also functions as an analytical part. The paper shows how Sverigedemokraterna could be understood as an ERP party, based on e.g its populist anti-establishment critique, and its critique towards the ?immigrant issue?.

The aim of this study was to try to get an overall image of how participation is constituted in the organization of AMA, a Human Service Organization (HSO) that is part of the Vasteras municipality.  With focus on mainly participation but also communication and leadership the goal was to find out more about how the governing parts of the organization was able to communicate and create participation amongst their employees. Did the message come across? Using a triangulation method including interviews, surveys and observation hopefully this question would be answered along with trying to depict an overall image of the participation within the organization. The results indicated that there were both differences as well as similarities between the employees and the management with regards to how they experienced participation. A surprising result was that the geographical location was found to have an impact on how the staff perceived participation.