The Manifestations and Trajectories of Deliberative Constitution-Making: An Analysis of the ConstDelib Country Reports

Abstract

Deliberative democratic theorists and practitioners have increasingly taken constitution-making as an object of study and a target for action. Yet they most often lack a comprehensive picture of the variety of, and narratives about, constitutional deliberative events. I therefore undertake a systematic inventory of what I call the manifestations and trajectories of deliberative constitution-making. First, I conduct a literature review to defend my claim that deliberative constitutionalists have not yet provided an adequate event-typology. I also identify three institutional design features – connectivity, complementarity, cyclicality – to which event organizers should be particularly sensitive. Second, I explain my methodology and case-selection from the ConstDelib country reports and identify three variables which track the similarities and differences in constitutional deliberative events: the sequencing of the event in a constitution-making timeline; the anticipated event output; whether constitution-making actors have a duty of response to the output. Third, I explain how the interaction between these variables yields four manifestations of constitutional deliberative events: depending on the convener, these may manifest as “inside” or “outside” versions of “constitutional convention”, “quality control”, “value mapping”, or “institutional experiment”. Fourth, I suggest that narratives about a polity’s practice of deliberative constitution-making may be framed in terms of three broad trajectories: quasi-institution; ad hocery; facade. Fifth, I put forward a menu of four general recommendations and four type-specific standards to improve event outcomes and align events and public expectations. All together, these resources contribute to the formation of a critical theory of deliberative constitution-making.