ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Clim.
Sec. Climate Adaptation
Assessing the Effectiveness of Climate Assemblies: Framework for Measuring Deliberative Impact
Provisionally accepted
Aelita Skarzauskiene1*
Monika Maciuliene1
Kristina Kovaite1
Paulius Šūmakaris1
Anna-Maria Kotrikla2Gintarė Gurevičiūtė1
Kyriaki-Maria Fameli2
Amalia Polydoropoulou2Rūta Balkė1- 1Vilniaus Gedimino technikos universitetas, Vilnius, Lithuania
- 2Panepistemio Aigaiou - Panepistemiake Monada Chiou, Chios, Greece
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Climate Assemblies have emerged as innovative participatory governance tools for addressing climate change challenges, but systematic approaches to evaluate their effectiveness remain underdeveloped. This study presents a comprehensive framework for assessing the deliberative impact of climate assemblies, addressing a critical gap in the literature on deliberative democracy and climate governance. Using an iterative design approach that involves multiple stakeholders, we developed a structured methodology that incorporates input, process, and output indicators to evaluate the performance of Climate Assemblies across different dimensions. The framework is structured around input, process, and outcome dimensions, each linked to two overarching objectives—policy legitimacy, grounded in inclusive and trusted participation, and policy effectiveness, reflected in the extent to which assembly recommendations inform tangible climate action. The framework was developed through an iterative process that included best-practice reviews, stakeholder consultations, and collaborative workshops and was subsequently piloted in two European Climate Assemblies. Our findings demonstrate that systematic evaluation improves transparency and accountability in deliberative processes while providing valuable insight to improve their design and implementation. The framework enables policy makers, organizers, and researchers to assess whether Climate Assemblies achieve their intended objectives of inclusive participation, quality debate, and meaningful policy impact. By establishing standardized evaluation criteria, this study contributes to the advancement of deliberative democratic practices in climate governance and offers a practical tool to ensure that citizen participation translates into effective climate action.
Keywords: Climate Assemblies, deliberative democracy, Performance monitoring, policy impact, citizen engagement, Climate governance
Received: 05 Aug 2025; Accepted: 30 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Skarzauskiene, Maciuliene, Kovaite, Šūmakaris, Kotrikla, Gurevičiūtė, Fameli, Polydoropoulou and Balkė. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aelita Skarzauskiene, aelita@mruni.eu
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.