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.

This book explains deliberative constitution-making with a special focus on the connections between participation, representation and legitimacy and provides a general overview of what the challenges and prospects of deliberative constitution making are today. It seeks to provide a more complete picture of what is at stake as a political trend in various places in the world, both theoretically and empirically grounded. Distinctively, the book studies not only established democracies and well-known cases of deliberative constitution-making but also such practices in authoritarian and less consolidated democratic settings and departs from a traditional institutional perspective to have a special focus on actors, and in particular underrepresented groups. This book is of key interest to scholars and students of deliberative democracy, constitutional politics, democratization and autocratization studies, citizen participation and more broadly to comparative politics, public administration, social policy and law.

This book takes stock of Belgium's exceptional and - for some foreign observers -schizophrenic position in the political world and explains its idiosyncrasy to a non-Belgian audience. Offering a broad and comprehensive analysis of Belgian politics, the guiding questions throughout each of the chapters of this book are: Is Belgium a political enigma, and why? Along which axes is Belgium "exceptional" compared to other countries? And what insights does a comparative study of Belgian politics have to offer? The book therefore provides a critical assessment of how Belgian politics "stands out" internationally, both in good and bad ways - including consociationalism, federalism, democratic innovations, Euroscepticism, government formation, gender equality, among others - and which factors can explain Belgium's exceptional position. Based on cutting-edge research findings, the book will be of wide interest to scholars and students of Belgian politics, European Politics and Comparative politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

This book takes stock of Belgium's exceptional and - for some foreign observers -schizophrenic position in the political world and explains its idiosyncrasy to a non-Belgian audience. Offering a broad and comprehensive analysis of Belgian politics, the guiding questions throughout each of the chapters of this book are: Is Belgium a political enigma, and why? Along which axes is Belgium "exceptional" compared to other countries? And what insights does a comparative study of Belgian politics have to offer? The book therefore provides a critical assessment of how Belgian politics "stands out" internationally, both in good and bad ways - including consociationalism, federalism, democratic innovations, Euroscepticism, government formation, gender equality, among others - and which factors can explain Belgium's exceptional position. Based on cutting-edge research findings, the book will be of wide interest to scholars and students of Belgian politics, European Politics and Comparative politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

For deliberative democrats, the strength of any democracy is public deliberation, the frequent and reasoned discussion between citizens on political issues. Despite all the theoretical claims made about deliberative systems, the question remains how to empirically assess both the legitimacy and function of deliberative systems in the real world and how individual sites of deliberation interact within the larger political system. In other words, what is the legitimacy of each individual component and under which conditions can these components improve the legitimacy of the wider system? These are the central research questions for this book looking particularly through the prism of the citizen-led mini-public G1000 in Belgium, which grew out of a feeling of deep democratic crisis. Offering empirically measurable translations of philosophical concepts, the book enhances our understanding of how political systems function, and of the viability of a deliberative democracy at a larger scale. Finally, it provokes fundamental normative questions on how we want to shape our society, especially divided ones. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of deliberative democracy, and to those interested in democratic theory and more broadly political science, communication, sociology, and philosophy.

Multinational federations rest on the coexistence of two or more nations within a single polity. Within these federations, minority nations play a significant role as their character differs from the other building blocks of the federation. This edited volume offers a comprehensive comparison of two such minority nations - Quebec in Canada and Wallonia in Belgium - which exemplifies many dimensions, themes and issues highly resonant to the study of federalism and regionalism across the globe. Quebec and Wallonia have experienced several decades of federal dynamics where both regions have had to find their way as a minority nation in a multinational federation. For those studying federalism and regionalism their importance lies in a number of characteristics, but principally in the fact of these minority nations have transformed into mini-states with fully fledged legislative powers within their federation. This book seeks to study the specific dynamics within these small worlds and between them and the rest of the federation. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of federalism, nationalism and regionalism, comparative politics and policies, political ideas and social movements.

Multinational federations rest on the coexistence of two or more nations within a single polity. Within these federations, minority nations play a significant role as their character differs from the other building blocks of the federation. This edited volume offers a comprehensive comparison of two such minority nations - Quebec in Canada and Wallonia in Belgium - which exemplifies many dimensions, themes and issues highly resonant to the study of federalism and regionalism across the globe. Quebec and Wallonia have experienced several decades of federal dynamics where both regions have had to find their way as a minority nation in a multinational federation. For those studying federalism and regionalism their importance lies in a number of characteristics, but principally in the fact of these minority nations have transformed into mini-states with fully fledged legislative powers within their federation. This book seeks to study the specific dynamics within these small worlds and between them and the rest of the federation. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of federalism, nationalism and regionalism, comparative politics and policies, political ideas and social movements.

For deliberative democrats, the strength of any democracy is public deliberation, the frequent and reasoned discussion between citizens on political issues. Despite all the theoretical claims made about deliberative systems, the question remains how to empirically assess both the legitimacy and function of deliberative systems in the real world and how individual sites of deliberation interact within the larger political system. In other words, what is the legitimacy of each individual component and under which conditions can these components improve the legitimacy of the wider system? These are the central research questions for this book looking particularly through the prism of the citizen-led mini-public G1000 in Belgium, which grew out of a feeling of deep democratic crisis. Offering empirically measurable translations of philosophical concepts, the book enhances our understanding of how political systems function, and of the viability of a deliberative democracy at a larger scale. Finally, it provokes fundamental normative questions on how we want to shape our society, especially divided ones. This text will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of deliberative democracy, and to those interested in democratic theory and more broadly political science, communication, sociology, and philosophy.

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.