Constitutional Deliberative Democracy in Europe

From small-scale experiments, deliberative mini-publics have recently taken a constitutional turn in Europe. Iceland and Ireland have turned to deliberative democracy to reform their constitutions. Estonia, Luxembourg and Romania have also experienced constitutional process in a deliberative mode. In Belgium the G1000, a citizen-led initiative of deliberative democracy, has fostered a wider societal debate about the role and place of citizens in the country's democracy. At the same time, European institutions have introduced different forms of deliberative democracy as a way to connect citizens back in. These empirical cases are emblematic of a possibly constitutional turn in deliberative democracy in Europe. The purpose of this book is to critically assess these developments, bringing together academics involved in the designing of these new forms of constitutional deliberative democracy with the theorists who propagated the ideas and evaluated democratic standards.

Min Reuchamps is Professor of political science at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. He graduated in political science from the Université de Liège (licence and PhD) and from Boston University (Master of Arts).

His teaching and research interests are federalism and multi-level governance, democracy and its different dimensions, as well as participatory and deliberative methods.

He has published over ten books and edited volumes and his work has appeared in international journals such as Acta Politica, Ethnopolitics, Government & Opposition Party Politics, Politics, Politique et Sociétés, Regional and Federal Studies, Res Publica, Territory, Politics, Governance and West European Politics.

He currently serves as the President of the French-speaking Belgian association for political science (ABSP).



Jane Suiter is the Director of the Institute for Future Media and Journalism at Dublin City University. She is a senior lecturer at the School of Communications and her research interests focus on political participation, deliberation and the media. Jane is deputy research director of the Irish Constitutional Convention and founding member of We the Citizens. Jane has published widely and her work has appeared in journals such as Electoral Studies, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, Parliamentary Affairs, International Political Science Review, Irish Political Studies and Politics.