Political Participation : Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the bestuse of the citizens’ proposals?

” Does Karlstad municipality have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens’ proposals?” The purpose with the thesis is to investigate if citizens’ proposals lead to a broader political influence. To answer that, I have done a case study about how Karlstad municipal administers citizens’ proposals. The research assignment is: Does Karlstad municipal have adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens’ proposals? The perspective is a democracy perspective and the theory is institutional theory and policy process theory. A selection of citizens’ proposals that have arrived to Karlstad municipal between 2008 and 2010 have been studied in detail to analyze how the proposals have been administered and if it matters how the proposals are phrased. I have also studied statistics from the period between 2008 and 2010 and interviewed four civil servants that work with citizens’ proposals. Two of them work at a superseding level and two of them work at an administration. The result of the study is that citizens’ proposals can lead to a broader political influence and that Karlstad municipal has adequate institutional conditions to make the best use of the citizens’ proposals. The regulation is drawn up to make sure the proposals have to be considered by the respective administration boards and the basic data that the politicians have to base their decisions upon is thoroughly enough for them to make a well-founded decision