Constitutions are in theory expected to incarnate the will of the people but with few exceptions citizens have scant opportunities to directly influence them. In practice, new constitutions have been more frequently observed in exceptional, disruptive contexts such as decolonization processes, military coups or transitions. In contrast, the elaboration of new constitutions in stable and consolidated democracies has been uncommon. However, nowadays in Europe and across the world, several countries –Chile as an outstanding case– are turning to deliberative democracy to reform their constitutions, and in many others this question is high on the political and or social agenda. Such transformation also shuffles quite radically the role of the citizenry regarding constitutional changes. Traditionally such changes were 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 Action’s podcast series, supported by the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy, seeks to reinforce the action’s outcomes by producing a podcast for a more general public. The five episodes are created by Vice-Chair of the Action Dr. Yanina Welp, Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy Research Fellow at the Graduate Institute Geneva, and explore the topic of constitutional decision-making and citizen’s participation. Although stand-alone episodes, they have been designed to act as complementary units, making references to each other for continuity. There is a global claim for more participation connected to a general crisis of democracy. However, participation per se could not offer a solution and in some circumstances could even produce worse results than the expected.