The Impact of Citizen Participation on Public Sentiments during Crises: Comparative Study of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

Abstract

Citizen participation is identified as one of the essential tools of modern public governance in developing sustainable cities and communities. This is especially important during crises. This analysis revisits the debate regarding citizen participation and its impact on two public sentiments: the sense of security of the citizen and the citizen’s attitude toward the future during a crisis. The aim of this analysis was to discover how the variables of citizen participation in support, decision-making, and physical assistance to state institutions during crises affect these two public sentiments within geographically proximate countries. A cross-country omnibus survey was conducted on a random sample of 2875 citizens in the three Baltic countries: 959 in Estonia, 931 in Latvia, and 985 in Lithuania, respectively. Poisson regression procedures and linear regression analysis models were used for data analysis. Citizen participation was examined as a complex phenomenon manifested in the domains of citizen-led and government-led participation. It was found that the correlation between citizen participation, sense of security, and attitude toward the future varies from country to country despite the same nature of the crisis and despite the geographical proximity of the countries in question. The correlation analysis provided the only exception to trust in government (element of citizen-led participation), which was directly associated with the citizen’s sense of security. In all other cases, the correlations found were country-specific and not engagement-specific. The findings suggest that the phenomenon of citizen participation during times of crisis has not yet been fully explored. Furthermore, despite prevailing paradigms about the positive impact of citizen participation in a non-crisis situation, its impact is not necessarily direct or positive.

Considerations of the Impact of Seismic Strong Ground Motions in Northern Oltenia (Romania) on Some Indicators of Sustainable Development Characterization of the Region from a Security Perspective

“…in order to prevent the unwanted effects of some seismic strong ground motions that could have occurred later (Q5), the high degree of positive perception is observed (52.9%); however, there are differences of approximately 11% between respondents with university education (47.2%) and those with secondary education (58.3%), respectively, and between male (44.2%) female (55.7%) respondents (see Table 7). The results obtained are consistent with the conclusions of specialized studies that show that people living in rural areas, those with secondary education, and those of the female gender are predisposed to give a higher degree of trust to the state authorities [41][42][43][44]. A strong correlation is noted between the answers provided by the respondents to questions Q2 and Q5 (see Table 15).…”

Initiatives, public trust, and citizen engagement during crises: A comparative analysis across Baltic states

“…One significant approach involves allocating time and resources to representatives who engage with experts and interested parties, collaboratively formulating recommendations. This method enables citizens to actively participate in tackling challenges and implementing public decisions (Giedraitytė et al, 2022). Public participation in political life, not only in times of crisis, is shaped by the general public's awareness, which leads to a wide debate between an elite approach and a direct participation approach to democracy.…”

“…When analyzing trust and citizen activity, a small increase in correlation can be observed before the war (2021) (EE r = 0.499, LT r = 0.554, p < 0.01) and during the war (EE r = 0.624, LT r = 0.663, p < 0.01). In Latvia (2021), an average correlation is recorded between trust and public authorities value of the contribution of citizens to crisis management (LV r = 0.505, p < 0.01) and between an active citizen and the public authorities value of the contribution of citizens to crisis management (LV r = 0.554, p < 0.01) (Giedraitytė et al, 2022). All other correlations are weak.…”