How can "the democratic deficit" of the Swedish representative democracy be bridged over ?

Résumé du document

The opening article of the Swedish constitution states that "All public power in Sweden derives from the population". However, in a representative democracy, who ends up holding the power? Actually, direct democracy can't be implemented in a large country. This form of democracy was used in Ancient Greece. The citizens (even if citizenship couldn't be given to the foreigners, the salves and the women) gathered in Assemblies of 40 000 members on the Pnix hill to make important decisions by a show of hand. Its competences were significant. The modern form of democracy is a representative one. The people don't rule directly, but through elected representatives. The power is delegated to these representatives who are required to implement democracy in a large country. In this case, the representative is not submitted to the people through an imperative mandate. They can do whatever they want thanks to the representative mandate they enjoy. Their only sanctions are the risk to failure at reelection. Thus sovereignty is national and not popular. This means that it can be only exercised through vote.

Extraits

[...] For example, between 1952 and 1974, the number of the local municipalities was reduced from 200 to less than As a result of this bureaucratization, many citizens consider political power to be exercised “behind a smokescreen.” (Democracy the Swedish way.) The local level is thus touched at the same time. The main problem is that there is a lack of clear boundaries between central and local government responsibilities. Local and central government share responsibilities for the provisions of services in a non transparent way. In practice, the municipal sector is based on a strong self government. But in theory, it is not well defined in the constitution. [...]

[...] Thus it is difficult for them to recruit some new members. Trade unions are facing the same problem even if they played an important role to maintain the support of the people for the social democracy. The changing votes result from this crisis of the traditional representative functions of the parties: the voters don't have strong partisan identification any more and choose their votes functions of the issue. The voters have no more confidence in their representatives even if the representation itself is a relation of confidence. [...]

[...] Causes of this crisis can be found in all the levels of the political Swedish life. First at the supranational level. Because of the entrance of the country in the EU, a increasing number of political decisions tend to shift to a supranational level and derives form the European government. This complicated chain of delegation of power between EU and the national government widens the gap between citizens and political representatives who are sometimes obliged to follow the instructions of the European Union, regardless of the will of the citizens. [...]

[...] How can democratic deficit” of the Swedish representative democracy be bridged over ? The opening article of the Swedish constitution states that public power in Sweden derives from the population” But, in a representative democracy, who ends up holding the power? Actually, direct democracy can't be implemented in a large country. This form of democracy was used in the Antic Greece: the citizens (even if citizenship couldn't be given to the foreigners, the salves and the women) gathered in Assembly of members on the Pnix hill to make important decisions by a show of hand. [...]

[...] That' s why we will show in a second part how the democracy can push forwards it democratization by giving back power in the hands of the people itself which is one of the basis of democracy of voters went to the urns for the general election to the Rikstag, the Swedish parliament, in 2002.The outcome is higher than in the other European countries. However, the electoral participation rate is decreasing, and this waning is worst in case of European issues. As all the other occidental democracies, the Swedish democracy has to face some problems. Sweden is affected by a crisis of party identification, volatile electoral campaign and falling confidence. Actually, the parties don't represent correctly the interests of the people any more. [...]