From online participation to policy making: Exploring the success behind Latvian legislative crowdsourcing platform MyVoice

Abstract

While public administrations usually play a key role in developing, organizing and managing top-down e-participation, this chapter examines the case of the bottom-up model of e-participation where the platform, run by an independent non-governmental entity, has had a significant impact on Latvian politics. This chapter examines the driving forces behind the success of Latvian e-participation platform MyVoice (Manabalss.lv) which enables any Latvian citizen from the age of 16 to submit their legislative initiatives and start collecting signatures for examination by parliament. The study finds that the high policy record is explained by micro-level factors such as the quality control of the incoming citizen initiatives. In addition, the factors related to the organisational performance, political neutrality and public viability of the platform have been important for maintaining the trust of stakeholders in the long term.