Demokratisk rådgivning : En studie av inflytande hos pensionärsrådet och ungdomsfullmäktige i Karlstads kommun

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to determine if and how municipal consultative entities through influence may affect the legitimacy of the Swedish democratic model. The study aims to do this through analysing the opportunities for influence present with the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality, to determine how the councils may affect political participation and the role of elected representatives. To do so, the study asks the following primary research question: "What requisites for influence are present for participants of municipal consultative entities, as found for the representatives of the youth and the retired within the framework of their participation in the Youth Council and the Council of the Retired in Karlstads municipality?" The study answers this research question by dividing it into one question of policy and one question of democratic perspective, and investigating these matters through nine snowballing interviews with the decision makers, organisational actors and participants of the councils. The information from the interviews is then analysed per council through a framework of democracy theory, policy process theory and organisation theory. In a final step, the results from these analyses are compared to each other to determine common and disparate traits within the policies and dominant democratic perspectives of the councils. The primary findings of the study suggest that the success of a policy in this context, and the requisites for influence, are largely determined by how standardised and traceable the paths of communication between the decision makers and the participants are. It further finds that the democratic perspective among the primary decision makers appears largely congruent with the ideal of representative democracy. This, in turn, means that municipal consultative entities have the potential to either encourage or discourage participation (and thereby strengthening or weakening the legitimacy) within the Swedish democratic model depending on whether or not they are perceived to gain real influence. At the same time, the municipal consultative entities do not appear to undermine the role of elected representatives.