Mapping the Evolution of Citizens’ Assemblies Through Rules of Procedure

<p>In Polish legal system citizens’ assemblies can be considered as a form of social consultations without any further details on their internal structure, functions or the role they should play in Polish civil society. CA’s Rules of Procedure is the only document that codify good practices and informal norms governing the organization of CAs in Poland. Alternatively, we can call it &#34;a constitution&#34; of a CA that can be treated as the first step in institutionalization. Thus, the primary source material consists of the official Rules of Procedures that regulated the organization and structure of each CA. These documents were examined using a comparative variable-oriented approach (Ragin, 2014), allowing for systematic comparison across cases. We draw on a comparative qualitative analysis of ten RoPs of local CAs that took place between 2016 (when the first local CA was organized in Gdańsk) and 2023 (when the last local CA was organized in Rzeszów). We excluded (1) national CAs from the analysis due to the fact that their scope was to broad to be compared to local CAs and (2) two CAs that were organized in Łódź because according to some authors they did not meet all the good practices for CAs published by the OECD. The analysis of RoPs proceeded in three stages. First, we labelled the formal properties of each RoP, including document structure, length and formatting. Second, we analyzed substantive properties across three dimensions: deliberative procedures (e.g. educational phase, voting mechanisms), actor roles (e.g., facilitators, experts, monitoring bodies), and decision-making rules (e.g., thresholds for binding recommendations).  Third, we synthesized the observed similarities and differences across cases to identifycommon design elements and contextual variations. Given that our initial set of substantive categories was expanded with emergent themes identified during the analysis, we employed a combined deductive-inductive approach. This methodological orientation enables us to trace the evolving patterns of institutional design across Polish citizens’ assemblies, and to explore the extent to which Rules of Procedure function as instruments of formalization and sites of procedural innovation. All RoP documents were collected from publicly available sources or obtained directly from organizing institutions. For an overview of the cases included and the coding framework applied, see Supplementary Material .  To further explore how institutionalization of citizens’ assemblies unfolds in practice, we also employed an in-depth analysis to focus on the learning dynamics between two citizens’ assemblies. We chose two recent Polish citizens’ assemblies—Kraków II and Rzeszów—organized in the same year by the same coordinating NGO. Drawing on our conceptual framework, we view this learning process not as simple replication but as a multi-dimensional mechanism of institutionalization, one that blends active formalization (neo-institutionalism), iteration (structuration), and creative adaptation (critical institutionalism). By examining what was retained, revised, or rejected between the two cases, we hope to illuminate how citizens&#39; assemblies evolve not only through codified rules but also through reflective practice, contextual responsiveness, and organizational learning. To gain a comprehensive understanding of both cases, our research team supplemented document and material analysis with participant observations during the Kraków II Citizens&#39; Assembly in 2021 and the Rzeszów Citizens&#39; Assembly in 2023. This immersive involvement provided practical insights that enriched our analysis and allowed us to compare the Rules of Procedures of these CAs with firsthand experience. </p>