Abstract
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Advisory councils are spread across countries, operate at different decision-making levels, and have various statuses, e.g., obligatory, optional, regulated by laws, or operate only on the basis of the authorities decisions' (e.g., Alarcón, Font 2014; Font et al. 2019, Font, Navarro 2013, Walker 1999; Schulte 1999). In Poland, advisory councils are among the most formalized and institutionalized bodies. However, they are highly differentiated, depending on their status (obligatory - optional), decision-making level (local - regional - central), membership (composition and size) or the way members are elected, the duration of the term of office, as well as the relationship with local authorities and the place (stage) of the advisory councils in the local decision-making process.
In Poland, advisory councils have been undergoing a renaissance in recent years and are increasingly appointed by local authorities alongside innovative forms of participation, the so-called democratic innovations. Due to the diversity of advisory councils, we would like to focus on one type - senior citizens' councils. Next to youth councils, these entities are most often appointed in Polish municipalities. Moreover, in recent years they have gained increasing interest both in Poland (Frączkiewicz-Wronka et al. 2019; Gulińska, 2020) and other countries (Falanga et al., 2021; Serrat et al. 2020). The popularity of senior citizens' councils in Poland is firstly due to their legal mandate in the Law on Municipal Government. Second, the change in the age structure of Polish society and the need for local authorities to consult with the most concerned group on issues of senior policy.
Considering the legal status of senior citizens' councils in Poland and the results of empirical research among this type of councils, we would like to show that these bodies have limited potential for participation in local decision-making. Although they have been established in legal acts and the growing number of such entities, their scope of competence is very narrow, and their appointment and the range of issues submitted for opinion depends on local authorities. Therefore, it is difficult to hope for participation in the sense of C. Pateman, understood as a sharing of power (Pateman 1970). The participatory potential of senior citizens' councils is also not used by their members. In most cases studied, senior citizens' councils perceive their role as a collegial body responsible for initiating important issues for seniors. The research shows that council members themselves consider their role consultative and are not particularly interested in getting involved in public affairs beyond issuing opinions.
We aim to present the results of qualitative research carried out within the project "From dialogue to deliberation. Non-public actors as a (non)present participant in the local decision-making" (funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, DIALOG Program), between 2018 and 2020. Qualitative research in the form of semi-structured interviews (based on an interview scenario) was conducted in selected 13 cities with county rights (i.e., large cities in Poland that combine the tasks of municipalities and counties). The interview content was coded using QDA Data Miner 5.0.32 and subsequently analyzed (using the QDA method). Due to the specificity of qualitative research, the presented results do not allow generalizations. Nevertheless, it shows the specificity of the studied subject in the given context and may provide a basis for comparative studies.
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