Organizational Preconditions and Legal Opportunities in Lithuania for the Involvement of Community Participation in the Incident Management

To manage emergencies and disasters most often is used the model composed of four phases: risk mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. During the response phase, an incident management structure (IMS) is developed. It is generally acknowledged that the participation of communities in response actions increases the resources of public authorities and helps eliminate the outcomes of an incident in a more effective manner. Referring to the principles of the Neo-Weberian this article analyses the IMS, communitiesparticipation in the incident management and examines the assumptions of the Lithuanian laws on communities participation in incident management. The results of the research have revealed that community participation in the management of an incident, an emergency or a disaster is not regulated in Lithuania’s legislation, for this reason, the conclusion could be drawn that it is difficult to apply advanced IMSs and to find a common solution while manoeuvring between the actions of the hierarchy-based institutions and officials or officers and citizen or their group participation in the management of emergencies, disasters and incidents.