Seimas Insider
In autumn of 2021, the association “Jaunimo debatai” – together with more than 150 students from six Lithuanian schools – immersed themselves in “Seimas Insider”: an experimental, educational parliamentary simulation. Throughout September, association members met with students from as many as five different cities to discuss a topic of great importance to the international Lithuanian community: the question of legalising multiple citizenship.
The game developed specifically for this project simulated the work of the Lithuanian Seimas’ members in a somewhat simplified way. For half a day, the participants took on the role of parliamentarians and did politics themselves – they debated, worked in groups, drafted laws and took part in the plenary session, where they voted on the drafted laws. The biggest challenge for a “Seimas Insider” participant, just like for a real parliamentarian, is to represent their constituency well while also being able to listen to their colleagues. Whether to compromise, spend time on strategic reflection or intentionally weave political intrigue was left up to each simulation participant.
One of the main objectives of the simulation project was to address the problem of the Lithuanian public’s lack of trust in its parliament. Therefore, we are sure that the experience of “Seimas Insider” has inspired participants in Vilnius, Kaunas, Kėdainiai, Birštonas and Trakai to take a more active interest in the country’s domestic politics and to understand both the importance and challenges of debating.
The game was developed by the association “Jaunimo debatai” together with the team of “Planpolitik”, an organisation based in Germany with many years of experience in this field. We would like to thank the project’ s organising team – association members Viltė Pacevičiūtė, Viltė Sinkevičiūtė, Paulius Volčokas, Vilija Sviderskytė and Sergej Stoma – who were actively involved in working with the game development team in Germany. The “Seimas Insider” project was under the patronage of Dalia Asanavičiūtė, Member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, and was supported by the German Embassy in Vilnius (Botschaft der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Vilnius) through the “Resilience”-initiative.
