2025/07/15 by Тийна Рандма-Лийв, Rasa Bortkevičiūtė, Veiko Lember +2 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #E-Government and Public Services #Knowledge Management and Sharing #Social Media and Politics
paper · doi:10.1080/01900692.2025.2517124
openalex publication_date 2025/07/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/19
This comparative study examines the implementation of e-participation platforms in the three young democracies of the Baltic States: the Estonian Citizens’ Initiative Portal, the Latvian platform MyVoice, and the Lithuanian E-Citizen platform. Drawing on 28 interviews with key stakeholders of these platforms, alongside with an analysis of their content and relevant documents, this article demonstrates that, while governments often expect digitalisation to transform participatory governance, the adoption of digital platforms alone does not lead to more deepened civic engagement. Despite the varied organisational characteristics, digitalisation in all three countries reinforced rather than challenged the existing governance patterns, as the national-level factors significantly influenced e-participation implementation. To reap the benefits of e-participation initiatives in young democracies, the institutionalisation of e-participation, transparency of decision-making, vote thresholds, resource sufficiency, and levels of engagement should be systematically considered.