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Democratic dialogues in times of the pandemic – Nordic-Baltic experiences

All countries struggled, in one way or another, with how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic in the start. Apart from the medical and virological aspects of the crisis, dialogues within societies have been challenging, and at times not constructive. 

A country that implemented a unique cooperative effort between the national government and various agents of civil society – the so-called lockdown dialogues - in order to come together and build trust in the country’s ability to deal with the crisis, was Finland. In Latvia, on the other hand, a trustful dialogue with citizens were lacking - leading to a deepened division in the society. 

Even though the pandemic is not over, yet, the time may have come to initiate a discussion on what happened to our societies during the last one and a half years. We need to look for some learned lessons so that our societies can do better in the future.

 

Exact time will be announced shortly.