Effects of public participation in constitution making

Alex Hudson

- completed -

As public participation in the pre-drafting stages of constitution making has become de rigueur, there has been very little empirical research on the actual effects of this form of participation on the legal texts that constitute the primary outputs of such processes. Public participation could potentially have effects on the content of the constitution, public perceptions of the legitimacy of the constitution, the longevity of the constitution, and even judicial interpretation of the constitution. All of these potential effects are normatively important, but the most basic potential impact of public participation is the extent to which the text of the constitution reflects input from the public. Therefore, the central explicanda in this project are the extent to which public participation affects the content of a new constitution, and the variation in this effect between cases. So far, this project has produced one book and three articles.