Deliberative minipublics as an exercise of popular constitutionalism

A significant portion of the global population lives under constitutions written long before their birth, authored by a small elite, and adopted without their direct consent. To correct this, politicians and populist leaders have increasingly called for the general public to play a greater role in passing constitutional reforms, through referendums, deliberative mini-publics, and other participatory democratic initiatives. Can ordinary citizens be included in constitution-making? In this thesis, I explore the “deliberative turn” in popular constitutionalism and its implications for democratic institutional design, focusing especially on the relationship between inclusionary design and the successful passage of reforms. I analyse four prominent recent cases: Iceland’s Constitutional Convention (2010–2013), Ireland’s Convention on the Constitution (2012–2014) together with the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2016–2018), and the Chilean Constitutional Convention (2020-2022). All four cases are characterised by deliberation and varying selection mechanisms and outcomes. My findings indicate that deliberative minipublics, convened through stratified random selection, can effectively take up the role of trusted information and judgement proxy for a successful constitution-making process. Nevertheless, I conclude that the success of deliberative minipublics tasked with constitutional reform depends not only on public trust but also on the trust of political elites and established institutions.