STATEN OCH LOBBYISTERNA : En analys av hur riksdagsmotioner- och betänkanden anser att staten bör förhålla sig till lobbyism

State and the lobbyists- a study on how non-governmental bills and reports believes that the state should relate to lobbying. This study aims to examine members of parliament’s relation to lobbyists and interest groups, using a qualitative study of non-governmental bills and reports from the constitutional committee. Another focal point of this study is to see if the content of these bills and reports takes democratic values into account. The choice of topic is motivated by the fact that Sweden don’t have any legislation of non-institutionalized lobbying efforts. The nature of the material required a qualitative method focused on ideas, carried out by using dimensions used as analysis tool. The theoretical framework that constituted the analysis dimensions was built on the theory of alternative approach between the state and lobbyists and the democratic values accountability and representation. The empirical material in this study were non-governmental bills and the following reports from the period 2005 to 2015. One of the study’s most important findings was that the content of the bills suggest that the state should receive lobbyist efforts but affect and balance their opportunities of influence. Another finding was that the analysis of the reports claimed that the approach that the state argue for is to receive lobbying efforts, because the state doesn’t prove the opposite. The authors of the bills argued that lobbyism is a good thing for the parliamentary if it’s done in the right form. The political reform to introduce a public record over lobbyists was clearly mentioned in many of the bills. Furthermore, the democratic value accountability was given priority to in all motions, but representation was only found in five of the nine bills that was analyzed in this study