For WP3, the first phase consisted in stabilising the comparative research design and collecting newspaper data. We opted for a most dissimilar system design of comparative research as we wanted to take the contextual maturity with citizens’ assemblies into account. Research has been conducted in eight countries. This focused selection reflects a deliberate strategy to prioritize cases offering high-quality data access and strong analytical leverage for addressing the core research objectives. The selected cases are: Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the UK. To fully grasp the context we decided to analyse two newspapers per country: one progressive, one conservative. We collected newspaper data using different databases (Factiva, Europresse and Belga) as we encountered problems in data accessibility for some newspapers (in Belgium, Germany, Poland and Portugal), which slowed the data collection process a little (see also challenges).
We did not wait for the entire data collection to be finished and began to pre-process the data in the meantime. Belgian, French, Irish and British text files extracted from the database were preprocessed to generate clean usable excel data files. These excel files were then coded and descriptively analysed (while continuing the data collection). A second level of coding, analytical coding, enabled to produce analytical reports for each newspaper and each country, which served as the basis for the writing of scientific papers. We used qualitative and interpretive methods to analyse newspapers articles and also proceeded to descriptive analysis to objectify the structure and content of our corpus.
After one year, in February 2025, we had completed the entire analysis for Belgium, France, Ireland, and the UK, and collected data also for Spain and Portugal. At that moment we began to write the first paper analysing the different types of public debate sequences. In the meantime, we continued on proceeding with the preprocessing and analysis of Spanish and Portuguese data and with trying to find access to Polish and German data. We also began with presenting our first results and first versions of the paper analysing public debate sequences in conferences and seminars (see below). During fall 2025, we gained access to Polish and German data. We began the preprocessing and analysis of Polish articles, which has been completed in January 2026.To date WP3’s corpus includes 4065 articles.
After the submission of the first paper (see below), we began to analyse our data with a new theoretical lens: how does conflict and consensus shape discourses about citizens’ assemblies. From December 2025 onwards, in parallel with Polish data analysis and then German data preprocessing and analysis, we began to draft this second article, which focuses on the five core cases: Belgium, Ireland, France, Poland and the UK.
When it comes to WP1&2, the main goal is to systematically examine how citizens’ assemblies influence the policy-making process across different political and institutional contexts. Rather than focusing solely on whether recommendations are formally adopted, the project aims to capture influence as a broader and more dynamic process. Concretely, we investigate (i) activation—why and under which political configurations assemblies are launched, by whom, and with what stated rationales; (ii) uses and counter-uses – how political, administrative, and civil society actors mobilise, translate, or contest assemblies and their outputs across arenas (e.g. agenda-setting, framing, coalition bargaining, legitimation); and (iii) effects – whether and how these practices contribute to shifts in power relations among actors and to changes in policy content over time.
To achieve this, we selected a set of national-level cases across European countries. An expanded screening process allowed us to identify the most analytically relevant cases, leading us to prioritise assemblies in eight countries. – Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Poland. This selection capture variation in political systems, civil society-party relations, and institutional arrangements while remaining comparable in terms of assembly design. The team has worked since the beginning of these two WPs (September 2025) on building the analytical framework, selecting the cases, and collecting documentary archives related to these cases. ince the beginning of these two WPs in September 2025, the team has been working on developing the analytical framework, selecting cases, and collecting relevant documentary archives. Data collection has so far been completed for cases in Austria, Belgium, Ireland, and Germany.
