On December 1, the journal Policy Sciences published an article by Magni Szymaniak-Arnesen and Adela Gąsiorowska from the University of Warsaw, entitled "Assessing the substantive outputs of deliberative minipublics: a categorical framework for policy recommendations" (2025).
The article proposes a new tool for systematically comparing the linguistic aspects and content of recommendations from deliberative minipublics, including citizens' assemblies. The list of categories applicable to the analysis of recommendations was developed based on literature on comparative approaches to traditionally developed public policies and empirical research. The interviews and focus groups conducted by the authors concerned the evaluation of recommendations by various groups of actors involved in citizens' panels in Poland: residents, policy experts, civil society, and officials responsible for implementing the recommendations.
The publication contributes to the limited research available to date on the content of recommendations from deliberative minipublics and other participatory forms, and may be widely applicable to the study of deliberative processes and their impact on public policy.
The research was funded by the National Science Centre Poland Sonata Bis grant “Deliberative Innovations in Central and Eastern Europe – a panacea for democracy in crisis?” (DelibDemCEE) 2021/42/E/HS5/00155.
The article is available here.
