If democratic society is to avert the dire straits that may come from decreasing levels of political participation and civic engagement, all potential explanatory factors must be explored. The purpose of this paper is to i) elucidate how the modeling and self-efficacy mechanisms of social learning theory affect individuals’ decisions to participate politically or not, and ii) assess the applicability of the relatively unutilized social learning theory in studies on political socialization and participation, respectively. By conducting a study composed of life history interviews, the paper aims to contribute to the research field by providing new explanations on how and why participatory behavior occurs in individuals, potentially filling a research gap by using and developing the previously unutilized social learning theory. The study finds that the proposed social learning theory mechanisms appear to have some explanatory power in the context of individuals’ political participation and asserts that social learning theory may very well be applicable in similar future studies as a complement to other explanatory factors.

Förvånansvärt lite forskning har ägnats åt ungdomars deltagande i partipolitiska ungdomsförbund trots en långvarig nedåtgående trend i medlemsantal. Studier visar att ungdomsförbunden har svårt att rekrytera samt behålla sina medlemmar vilket är oroande då vi behöver ungdomars röster i partipolitiken för vår representativa demokrati och för att ungdomförbunden är den främsta rektryteringskällan till våra moderpartier. Denna studie syftar till att få en djupare förståelse kring varför ett urval av ungdomar väljer att gå med i partipolitiska ungdomsförbund samt vad de har för motiv till att stanna kvar. Studien består av semistrukturerade intervjuer med åtta ungdomar som är eller har varit aktiva inom ungdomsförbunden Ung Vänster och Moderateras ungdomsförbund MUF. För att undersöka detta har studien fokuserat på individuella resurser och faktorer och moraliska, sociala och materiella motiv till partipolitiskt deltagande. Resultatet visade på att individuella resurser och faktorer som politiskt intresse, motivation och sociala nätverk var viktiga kopplat till varför ungdomarna väljer att gå med i ett partipolitiskt ungdomsförbund. Sociala och moraliska motiv var högst förekommande bland ungdomarna för både varför de väljer att gå med men också vad som gör att de stannar kvar inom förbundet. / Surprisingly little research has been devoted to young peoples participation in party-affiliated youth organizations, despite a prolonged downward trend in membership numbers. Studies indicate that these youth organizations struggle to recruit and retain their members, which is concerning since young peoples voices in party politics are crucial for our reprecentative democracie and because these organizations serve as the primary recruitment source for their motherparties. This study aims to gain a deeper understanding of why a selection of young individuals choose to join party-affiliated youth organizations and what motivates them to remain. The study consists of semi-structured interviews with eight youths who are or have been active within the youth organizations Ung Vänster and Moderaternas ungdomsförbund MUF. To investigate this, the study focuses on individual resources and factors and also moral, social, and material motives for political participation. The results indicate that individual resources and factors such as political interest, motivation, and social networks are significant in why young people choose to join a party-affiliated youth organization. Social and moral motives are most common motives among the youth for why they choose to join and what keeps them engaged within the organization.

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. The results of the study indicates that the PB-institutions has multiple flaws regarding the way it enables the realization of numerous of the democratic goods analyzed. The institutional design does not pay enough attention to inclusion of different social groups including marginalized groups, popular control is restricted to issues of low political salience and the PB process does not live up to the transparency level expected from a democratic institution. On the other hand, the institutional design of the PB process does take into account some aspects of inclusion among the youth inhabitants and the process has been effective in the sense that it has delivered physical results quickly.

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.