By the time you finish reading this sentence, about 30,000 new Tweets will have been created, and Google will have answered 200,000 queries. The world is transforming before our eyes. Technological advances have changed the way people search for, absorb, and share information. As a new generation enters the age of political activism, self-governments must change traditional ways of exercising power. Introducing solutions that give young people tools for their times, inclusive participatory platforms are inevitable.
Online
As of June 2020, 4.5 billion people, or 58% of the earth's population, are connected to the Internet. In developed countries such as Poland, the percentage of households with access to the network exceeds 80% of the population.
To match the momentum of the spread of Internet access, self-governments must open up to digital innovation. And what better way to achieve this goal than to integrate technology into policy and decision-making?
For those under 30, citizen engagement is revealed online through social media or Civic Tech solutions. These tools allow citizens to have a voice in their community, provide an opportunity to voice their concerns and priorities, and build a long-term relationship and collaboration with the self-government. What's more, it's also safe for the health of all participants in the process, which is especially important in a pandemic.
Civic Tech's online platform can increase youth civic engagement in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, civic budgets, surveys, and citizen initiatives. These diverse methods of participation help self-government achieve many goals. These include distributing resources as expected, soliciting innovative ideas, and finally building greater trust within communities and ties to where they live.
The consultation project of Chile's National Youth Institute (Spanish acronym: INJUV) is a great example of how the younger are in their element with Civic Tech-type solutions: speaking up, coming up with ideas, laying plans, making videos, creating community projects, and making their own new contributions to the future of their country. In early 2020, INJUV launched a consultation platform to involve Generation Y in developing sustainable community development programs. More than 28,250 young citizens have registered on the platform to share their ideas, and 300 of these projects are currently being implemented.
Inclusively
Offline participation is often not representative, with factors such as age, gender, race, and income affecting whether someone is active or not. The accessibility of the participatory process and the clarity and transparency of the rules governing it ensure inclusive co-determination. With the average age of receiving a first smartphone being around 10 years old, the new generation expects the quality of civic rights and responsibilities handling processes to be as intuitive to use as popular social media platforms. The use of digital participation platforms at the local level is an obvious way to engage the young, with 45% of CitizenLab's platform users being under the age of 35.
Locally
Although trust in central governments has declined, local governments have managed to maintain a stronger bond with their citizens. At the local level, trust remains high and citizens are more willing to engage. A representative in parliament has hundreds of thousands of constituents, preventing direct engagement in politics at the national level. In local government, closer contact with citizens is possible, giving residents a voice in issues that affect the community and restoring their agency in areas that directly affect their daily lives.
One factor in the success of the INJUV platform is that the consultations, although nationwide in scope, focused on local issues. Citizens were able to use their knowledge of local issues to implement projects in their communities. Online participation, if implemented with due diligence, increases transparency and trust in local government, contributing to strengthening local democracy in the long term.
Creating a place for citizens to constructively express their views away from the polarizing algorithms of social networks has a tangible benefit. A platform for participation provides self-government with reliable information about what citizens need, helping them make more informed decisions. The process is easier to implement locally because the level of trust is higher, communication with citizens is more direct, and there is less bureaucracy in managing and implementing ideas.
