The purpose of this paper is to study if there is a causal relationship between socioeconomic resources and political participation. Are socioeconomic resources important for political participation? Are forms of participation important for the outcome of the political participation? These are some questions this study intends to answer. To answer these questions this study has studied the case of the municipality of Botkyrka in Sweden and therefore the case study method was used. The material was analyzed on the basis of the resource model by Sidney Verba and Nie and Robert Dahl's five criteria for democracy. The results of this study showed that in the case “Botkyrka” the socioeconomic resources largely determine how much politically involved you are. The “districts” with fewer resources were generally much less political active than those districts that had better resources. However, the study also shows that in the forms of participation that was less resource intensive, there was also less difference in the outcome of the political participation between the districts in the municipality of Botkyrka compared to the forms that required more resources. This shows that the choice of “forms of participation” is important in terms of achieving an increased political participation among those with less resources.

Summary Inhabitants involvement in local government institutes solving social problems and taking decisions helps local authority to improve their solutions and give information to take the rational decisions. There is the sympathetic environment for people presence in Alytus district. Informing citizenry about decisions of social problems and giving possibilities (to take part in questionings, in council – boards, in public meetings, they have a possibility to write petitions, etc.) to take part in taking social decisions. Inhabitants which are concerned with local government institutes very often act as individual persons or like a part of civil community or associations, therefore efficiency of social decisions depend on people. Local people working hand in glove are able to do bigger influence on government and on its decisions.