Beyond Issue Selection: An Overview of Agenda Control in Irish Citizens' Assemblies

Ireland has gained international recognition as one of the more frequent users of citizens' assemblies at the national level to address more or less contentious issues. There is evidence that these processes can draw public attention to an issue, effectively getting them onto the political agenda, or reframing the public discussion about a certain policy or providing normative benefits. However, there are also concerns that there is an incentive for politicians and/or policymakers to use them instrumentally to further their strategic interests. This paper explores whether and the extent to which decision-makers, such as politicians and bureaucrats, keep control over the agenda, from issue selection to problem framing, throughout the process. Agendas are usually discussed in terms of provenance (top-down or bottom-up) or framing, but this paper takes a more comprehensive approach, examining agenda control at multiple stages in the process to reveal how power flows and shapes decision-making beyond initial issue selection. By analysing survey data, including responses to questions from the Perceived Discourse Quality Index (PDQI) as well as other questions relevant to agenda control and specific characteristics relevant to each CA, we assess how participants perceive the way the agenda is set and managed using comparative insights from the different iterations of the Irish Assemblies (2012-2023).