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Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy

CA17135 - Constitution-making and deliberative democracy

Project Lead: Yanina Welp (Chair), Daniel Oross (Vice Chair)

Researchers: participants from 39 countries

Timeline: 2018-2023

Keywords: constitution making, deliberation, democracy, citizens participation, legitimacy

Funding Organisation: European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST)

In Europe and across the world, several countries are turning to deliberative democracy to reform their constitutions, and in many others this question is high on the political agenda. Such transformation also shuffles quite radically the role of the citizenry regarding constitutional changes. Traditionally such changes are the sole responsibility of elected officials, in collaboration with experts. With the deliberative turn, many more actors may be involved in the designing of constitutions: citizens both individually and collectively in the forms of informal associations, social movements, civil society organisations, participatory consultants and research teams. The Main aim of the action is to bring together all these actors – who are usually not in contact – to discuss and reflect on this democratic challenge, not only in terms of normative ideals but also and above all on the empirical challenges raised by this complex and multi-faceted democratic transformation.