Literature dedicated to analyzing constitution-making has focused on the relationship between “the optimal design of the constitution-making process” (in Jon Elster’s words) and a “successful” constitution in terms of whether it is durable, supported by citizens, and able to establish the desired framework of coexistence. Even though it cannot be said that there is agreement over the necessary characteristics for such success, authors have highlighted the importance of whether or not the constitution is drafted by a convention or constituent assembly created exclusively for that purpose, whether members of the body are popularly elected by means of a proportional system that allows for the representation of different social actors, whether deliberation and debate within the body are open to citizens and publicized, or whether the constitutional draft agreed upon is ratified by citizens in a referendum. Citizens' participation and transparency are at the core of the idea of a legitimate constitution. 

However, citizens' participation was not always understood as we do understand it now. The contemporary demand of participatory constitution-making sometimes suggests that past experiences were by default driven by elites. Then, is citizens participation just a founding myth? How it was, for instance, during the elaboration of the American and the French constitution? Or how it was during the Spanish transition to democracy in 1978. These are central questions because there is a global claim for more participation connected to a general crisis of democracy. At the same time, participation per se could not offer a solution to all identified problems and in some circumstances could even produce worse results than the expected to be resolved by it. In this first episode of Constitutions for Democracy, the podcast made by the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy and the Cost Action 17135, it is explored what deliberation means and what can we learn from historical and contemporary experiences. These complex topics are addressed by Elena García Guitián and Paul Blokker in conversation with Yanina Welp.
 

Guests 

Elena García Guitián is aprofessor of political science and public administration at the Autonomous University of Madrid, in Spain. Since 1992, she has participated in several R&D research projects financed with public funds, mainly through the Center for Political Theory (associated with the UAM). Between 2009 and 2011 she was General Director of Relations with the Courts in the Ministry of Presidency (Spanish Government).

Paul Blokker is a professor at the University of Bologna, in Italy.  His research interests include the sociology of constitutional law and of human rights, constitutional change, constitutional and political imaginaries, civic participation, and populism, in particular (but not only) in the context of East-Central Europe.