For the last decades, Sweden has transformed from a state with strong elements of corporatism, to a governance of pluralistic character. This development has opened up to a new form of participation – lobbyism – which since has spread and commercialized. Because of this, a report on the state of Swedish democracy – Demokratiutredningen – was issued to examine the phenomenon of lobbyism as it was feared to challenge the functioning of a representative democracy. The report issued a warning of the negative impact on transparency and political equality a professionalization of lobbying could have. Even some forms of regulation were thought to have a negative impact on the political equality. Since the report was released in 2000, nine bills regarding lobbyism have been presented to the Swedish parliament, but no regulation has yet been implemented. The report identified problems regarding transparency and political equality with both regulated and unregulated lobbying. The aim of this thesis is to examine how the parliamentary bills handle the democratic problems voiced by the report. The bills are analyzed with the ideal types of “transparency” and “political equality”, based on Robert Dahl’s ideal of democracy. The study found that the problem of transparency was of a high priority in the bills, while the problem of political equality was hardly addressed. Three of the bills actually ignored the warning issued by the report, where a regulation in the form of registration was thought to have a negative impact on political equality. The fact that the bills hardly addressed the problem of political equality, and in some cases even worsened it, represents a democratic deficit in the regulation debate. / De senaste decennierna har Sverige förvandlats från en stat med starka inslag av korporativism, till ett styrelseskick med pluralistisk prägel. Utvecklingen har öppnat upp för en ny deltagandeform, lobbyism, som sedan dess brett ut sig och kommersialiserats. Med anledning av detta tillkallade regeringen Demokratiutredningen för att analysera lobbningen då den ansågs utmana den representativa demokratins funktionssätt. Demokratiutredningen varnade för att professionaliseringen av lobbying kunde påverka öppenheten och den politiska jämlikheten negativt. Även vissa regleringar ansågs kunna försämra den politiska jämlikheten. Sedan Demokratiutredningen överlämnade sitt slutbetänkande år 2000 har nio motioner gällande lobbyism lagts fram i Sveriges riksdag utan att resultera i en reglering. Demokratiutredningen identifierade demokratiproblem med både öppenhet och politisk jämlikhet i oreglerad, såväl som reglerad, lobbyism. Uppsatsen studerade hur motionerna i ärendet hanterat de demokratiproblem som utredningen framhävde. Studien genomfördes med idealtyper som analysverktyg. Idealtyperna, ”öppenhet” och ”politisk jämlikhet”, byggdes upp med hjälp av Robert Dahls demokratiideal. Studien fann att problemet med öppenhet uppmärksammades i hög grad av motionerna, medan politisk jämlikhet knappt hanterades alls. Tre av motionerna ignorerade till och med den varning som Demokratiutredningen utfärdade, där en reglering i form av registrering skulle påverka den politiska jämlikheten negativt. Att motionerna inte hanterar problemet med politisk jämlikhet, och i flera fall även förvärrar den, innebär ett påtagligt demokratiskt underskott i regleringsdebatten.

Rätten till politisk delaktighet är en central kärna i MR-perspektivet. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om medborgardialog, initierade av kommuner, bidrar till främjandet av politisk delaktighet och inkludering av utrikes födda kvinnor. Med avstamp från den deliberativa demokratimodellen och med hjälp av centrala begrepp såsom deltagande, politisk jämlikhet och grupprepresentation så har studien på övergripande plan kunnat undersöka hur svenska kommuner tillämpar medborgardialog och i vilken utsträckning kvinnor blir inkluderade respektive exkluderade. Efter att ha undersökt tre olika kommuner med högst andel utrikes födda kvinnor så visar resultatet på att medborgardialog är ett effektivt instrument för att främja politisk delaktighet i en svensk kontext. Kommunernas fortsatta arbete med att utveckla medborgardialogerna är därför av största vikt och i synnerhet genom att utveckla riktlinjer explicit för att inkludera utrikes födda kvinnor.

This study deals with the quality of democracy, and its purpose is to examine which factors affect the varying levels of the quality of democracy in the stable democracies in the world. The research question posited in the study is: what explains the varying levels of the quality of democracy in the democratic countries in the world, and do political institutions matter? Theoretically, the quality of democracy is distinguished from other similar concepts employed in comparative politics, and what the quality of democracy stands for is clarified. The quality of democracy is defined in this study as: the level of legitimacy in a democratic system with respect to democratic norms such as political participation, political competition, political equality, and rule of law. In total, four dimensions of the quality of democracy are included that are considered to be very important dimensions of the quality of democracy. These dimensions are political participation, political competition, political equality, and the rule of law. To explain the variation in the quality of democracy, an explanatory model has been developed. The explanatory model consists of five different groups of independent variables: political institutional variables, socioeconomic variables, cultural variables, historical variables, and physical variables. Methodologically, a large-n, outcome-centric research design is employed and statistical analysis is used to examine what effect the five groups of independent variables have on the four dimensions of the quality of democracy. Empirically, the results show that cultural variables and political institutional variables outperform socioeconomic, historical, and physical variables in relation to their effect on the quality of democracy. Consequently, cultural and political institutional variables are the two most important groups of variables when explaining the variation in the quality of democracy in the democratic countries in the world. In relation to the other groups of variables, historical variables are slightly more important than socioeconomic variables when explaining the variation in the quality of democracy. The physical variables constitute the group of variables that has the least importance out of the five groups of variables when explaining the variation in the quality of democracy. In summary, the findings from the study show that the best way of increasing the level of the quality of democracy may be to choose political institutions such as parliamentarism as the executive power system and a proportional system as the electoral system. To put this clearly, to increase the possibility of democratic countries achieving a high level of the quality of democracy they should avoid majority electoral systems and presidential or semipresidential executive systems.

Contemporary democratic states seems to be facing problems regarding who is to be included in demos. Without knowing who is included in the people, it is impossble to know who is to be granted political equality. Whithout political equality, there can be no democracy. This thesis undertakes an internal citique to establish whether the nationalist-principle (represented by David Miller), the all affected interests-principle (represented by Robert E. Goodin) and the coercion-principle (represented by Arash Abizadeh) can be justified on the basis of their own view of political equality. It will be argued that all of the principleas are more or less internally incoherent, meaning that none of the perpesctives of who is to be included in the demos is consistent with political equality. By pointing out these inconsistencies, this paper lays the foundation for a potential further developent of these principles, which could make them more in tune with political equality.

Most researchers and democracy theorists who define what democracy is or should be, agree that civic participation is the core of a democracy. Without citizen participation, there would be no democracy. The broad participation in political processes symbolizes the idea of political equality. A high level of political participation among citizens is usually seen as a sign that democracy is functioning satisfactorily. Unfortunately, today's political reality, on the other hand, shows that actual democracy does not reflect the democratic ideal models. The economic and social gaps in society largely explain how participatory activity is distributed among the citizens. The purpose of this master's thesis, which is a case study, has been to study the political equality in the e-proposal process within Linköping municipality. This means that the socio- economic representativeness among the proposers has been studied between the years 2016 and 2021. Furthermore, the geographical spread of the proposals has been studied between the years 2016 and 2018, together with the political priority areas of the proposers.  A web survey was conducted to gather information on the proposers’ socio-economic conditions. In total, the survey was answered by 207 respondents. This survey has contributed to either verifying or falsifying the research hypothesis. The hypothesis states that it is mainly socio-economically resourceful individuals who submit Linköping proposals. In summary, the study shows that it has been particularly resourceful individuals who have submitted Linköping proposals. Furthermore, the proposals are intended to be implemented in areas where the socio- economic standard is relatively high. The study has also shown that the proponents to a large extent (80.9 percent) have requested initiatives that relate to urban planning issues and culture and leisure. Finally, the results of the study illustrate that the approvals mainly refer to socio- economically strong areas. In conclusion, the empirical results of the study have contributed to the hypothesis being verifiable, as it has mainly been socio-economically resourceful individuals who have submitted Linköping proposals.

Rätten till politisk delaktighet skapar möjligheter för medborgare att göra anspråk på sina mänskliga rättigheter, och därmed möjliggör för medborgare att påverka sina levnadsförhållanden. Frånvaron av möjligheter till att delta och att kunna påverka beslut är därmed ett betydande rättighetsproblem. Uppsatsen har sin start i den politiska ojämlikheten som har påvisats i Sverige, där den allmänna rösträtten inte verkar räcka till för att garantera politisk jämlikhet. I utredningar föreslås medborgardialog som en lösning. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om medborgardialoger, initierade av Hallstahammars kommun och Västerås stad, kan förstås som ett uttryck av deliberativ demokrati. För att studera detta avgränsades deliberativ demokrati till fem normativa deliberativa ideal; argumentation, inkludering, jämlikhet, transparens och beslutspåverkan. Dessa ideal ses som rimliga villkor för deliberativ demokrati och har mätts mot kommunernas medborgardialoger med hjälp av en kvalitativ fallstudie med textanalys.   Uppsatsens resultat visar på att medborgardialog kan förstås som ett uttryck för deliberativ demokrati när det gäller en del normativa villkor, men i det stora hela så brister medborgardialogerna i de utvalda deliberativa idealen. Hallstahammars kommun är ett uttryck deliberativ demokrati i större utsträckning än Västerås stad. Kommunernas fortsatta arbete med att utveckla medborgardialoger är därför av största vikt och i synnerhet genom att utveckla riktlinjer och strategier explicit för att främja den politiska jämlikheten för samtliga kommunmedborgare. Uppsatsen har resulterat i en sammanfattande guide för att genomföra medborgardialoger med deliberativa kvalitéer. / The right to political participation creates opportunities for citizens to claim their human rights, thereby enabling citizens to influence their living conditions. The absence of opportunities to participate and to be able to influence decisions is therefore a significant human rights problem. The paper starts with the political inequality that has been demonstrated in Sweden, where voting rights does not seem to be enough to guarantee political equality. In studies, citizen dialogues are proposed as a solution.  The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether citizen dialogues, initiated by Hallstahammar municipality and Västerås municipality, can be understood as an expression of deliberative democracy. To study this, deliberative democracy was limited to five normative deliberative ideals: argumentation, inclusion, equality, transparency and decision-making influence. These ideals are reasonable conditions for deliberative democracy and have been measured against municipal citizen dialogues in a qualitative case study using text analysis as a tool.   The result of the study shows that citizen dialogues can be understood as an expression of deliberative democracy when it comes to some normative conditions, but overall, the citizen dialogues lack in the chosen ideals. Hallstahammar municipality is an expression of deliberative democracy to a greater extent than Västerås municipality. The continued work of municipalities in developing citizen dialogues is therefore of the utmost importance and by developing guidelines and strategies explicitly to promote political equality for all municipal citizens. The study has resulted in a guide to conduct citizen dialogues with deliberative qualities.