Hi Jonas,

Yes, this is possible. If you create users and set them as members of the "writer" group that comes with Umbraco out-of-the-box, any user that is a member of that group will be unable to publish content themselves, a user with higher permission levels must do that. You can also create your own groups of users and assign them custom permissions if you wish to set up your own user hierarchy and workflow process.

Hope this helps.

Benjamin