Ideal möter verklighet
Två exempel på hur deltagardemokrati kan praktiseras i verkligheten
Unga väljer Miljö i MalmöParticipatory democracyMöllevångsgruppenRepresentationReal influencePolitical and administrative sciencesStatsvetenskapFörvaltningskunskapLaw and Political Science
This thesis is using the theory of participatory democracy to show how one can work to increase the participation in the society, between elections as well as during elections. For a couple of years now many traditional democratic countries have been struggling with low voting rates. Hence this, I find it interesting to study what has been done to cope with this problem. The government in Sweden had a project working on how to make more people involved in the democratic process, especially people that to a lesser extent participate in this process. In this thesis two projects will be studied, Möllevångsgruppen and Unga väljer Miljö i Malmö. We will see how they?ve been working to increase the participation of young people and immigrants. A sort of valuation will be done, using three criteria from the ideal of participatory democracy. These are participation, representation and real influence. The results show that it is not that simple to apply the ideal of participatory democracy to the reality. It also shows that it's sometimes difficult to reach the good intentions, often because of bad presumptions which have to be worked on.