Den demokratiska processen - Plan- och beslutsprocessen kring Kristianstad Arena i jämförelse med en demokratinorm

Sammanfattning: The overall purpose of this essay has been to evaluate a local planning and decision-making process by comparing it with a norm of a democratic process. The case in question was the building of a new multi-purpose arena in Kristianstad. After the decision to build had been made the arena process was accused of being undemocratic and in the end the protesters even tried to force through a referendum. This raises a couple of questions: What is a democratic process and was this a democratic process? To evaluate the process two operational questions was used: What values should a democratic process fulfill? How have the involved actors in the arena process, based on interview statements, related to these values? Through normative analysis four values were identified: transparency, participation, accountability and dialogue. By setting up a number of criteria for each value and then comparing the criteria’s with the result of 8 elite interviews the process was evaluated. The result shows that there are structural errors that cause problems for the democratic process and especially for the democratic accountability. The ideas about democratic dialogue and participation, that the involved actors have, lead them to act in ways that cause problems for all of the democratic values.