Abstract
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Traditionally in connection with the participation, the institutional forms are being studied since their activities can be counted and measured, for instance, voter turnout in elections or in referenda. Citizen participation in other institutional forms, for instance, public consultations and committees of the state or local government, can also be measured. However, statistical data suggests that in Latvia citizens are not interested in the institutional participation, less than 1 percent of citizens are members of political parties, around 5 percent of Latvian citizens are members of non-governmental organisations, and participation rates in state and local elections are gradually decreasing. Nevertheless, activity measurements in the institutional participation forms alone do not provide a notion about the real volume of citizen participation.
Development of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) on the one hand brought new opportunities, wider cooperation and communication forms in implementation of the participation process, still, on the other hand, the ICT created pre-conditions to an individual’s expression or action that slowly breaks his/her necessity to involve in collective organisations outside working hours. According to Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, ICT has consolidated “networked individualism”, which is an emerging system of social relationships focused on the individual. In Latvia citizens are actively using the internet, according to Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia in 2017 access to the internet was in 79 percent of all Latvian households and 60 percent of citizens were participating in the social networks. Accordingly, the question then arises if Latvia could become the country where non-institutional forms of participation could be encouraged by public administration. Are Latvian institutions ready to listen to individual citizens and use ICT to foster citizens’ participation?
The objective of this article is to pay attention to non-institutional forms of participation and to find out which form - institutional or non-institutional participation - is preferred by Latvian citizens and public administration. Methods of the research are citizens` survey about their preferable forms of political participation, as well as a questionnaire conducted with public administration representatives responsible for cooperation with citizens. The findings of the paper suggest that Latvian public administration institutions are aware of citizens` engagement opportunities that the ICT are offering, as well as, they are implementing initiatives, for instance, Open Government Partnership activities and mobile applications, that could lead to the capability of using networked individualism in favour of citizens’ participation. On the other hand, it is not enough that Latvian public institutions are represented in the same digital world where citizens are spending their time, they also must be attractive and open to two-way communication to engage citizens in the political participation. Thereby, there is a need for a more consistent and comprehensive policy to ensure that citizens are using digital tools that are provided for them.
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