This article examines a model for facilitating youth participation inlocal politics in Sweden. The Swedish youth councils are the responsibility of local authorities and they are designed to encourage political and civic interests among young people. These councils administrated by local bureaucracies are analyzed using institutional logics theory to determine the intentions, organization and outcomes of youth participation. The conclusions show that the institutional logic of the local public administration tends to dominate over the democratic logic of political participation for the young. The findings are based on mainly qualitative data from a two-year research project in Sweden.