Citizens’ opposition to closing of public schools is nothing new in Sweden, but recently it has spread from rural areas to suburbs and become more visible. Some of such campaigns succeed in stopping or postponing the closure, while other actions fail and pupils are sent to new school. As the consequences of school closures are shown to be negative for pupils, teachers, and the local community, it is interesting to know how and in what conditions some local groups succeed in stopping the closure. As the democratic principles suggest that citizens should have equal opportunities for participation and influence in political decision-making, it is important to ask whether protesting in rich, urban or native-Swedes dominated areas is more successful than the struggle in poor or immigrant dominated communities? Does it matter who participate in such actions and what kinds of strategies they use? This project will answer these questions by using and developing further the theories of social movement outcomes. These refer to the importance of local municipal power-relations and socio-economic situation of a municipality. The empirical analysis uses data on all Swedish municipalities that have discussed the question of school-closure during the last twenty years. The quantitative analysis will be complemented with a few case-studies for exploring the mechanism of citizens’ impact on decision-making in Swedish municipalities. The results will be made available for the public via project-webpage.