In person icon Exploring the Impacts of Citizens’ Assemblies: Insights from Cross-Country Comparative Perspectives

Abstract

Citizens’ assemblies have gained significant attention from scholars and practitioners alike, seen as a mechanism to bridge the gap between citizens and representative institutions while tackling complex policy challenges such as climate change. The recent surge of CAs across Europe, from local initiatives to national-level assemblies, raises the critical question: Do they deliver meaningful impact? While existing research has explored the intrinsic democratic value of deliberation (Geissel and Newton, 2012; Smith, 2009), the focus has primarily been on impacts on participants – e.g., enhancing political efficacy at the expense of broader impacts. Recent scholarship calls for a more nuanced and comparative examination of various types of CA impacts (Geissel and Michels, 2023; Pogrebinschi and Ryan, 2018; Dean et al., 2022), e.g. policy, where recommendations shape legislation and public policies; polity, where political institutions become more open to citizen input; and political, where public opinion or political dynamics shift. Yet, empirical studies of these impacts remain fragmented, often constrained by single case studies and short-term analyses (Spada and Ryan, 2017). Emerging literature also highlights the critical role of integrative design features – mechanisms that embed CAs into the complex constellation of political, policy, and civil society actors – in determining the extent and form of CA impacts (Boswell et al., 2022; Dean et al., 2020). Unlike internal design features such as random selection and facilitation quality, integrative features address how CAs interface with executive, legislative, administrative, and civil society stakeholders (Bussu et al., 2022). These connections are vital for understanding how CAs influence long-term policy cycles and navigate political conflicts (Hendriks, 2016; Goodin, 2005). This panel seeks to advance the comparative study of CAs by addressing three overarching questions: 1. What kinds of impact do CAs have and under what conditions? 2. How do integrative design features connect deliberative processes to broader political systems? 3. What relationships exist between integrative designs and the realization of specific impacts? By bringing together theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions, the panel aims to address gaps in existing scholarship, particularly the lack of comparative, longitudinal studies and the need to include failures and mid-to-long-term impacts in assessments (Jacquet and van der Does, 2021; Font et al., 2017). Additionally, it will explore how civil society engagement and adaptations to existing political conflicts influence outcomes, offering a robust framework for understanding the transformative potential of CAs in European democracies.

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