Public participation in constitution building processes; what does it mean?

Abstract Public participation in constitution building processes particularly in the aftermath of violent conflict and when states transit from authoritarian rule is being forcefully advanced by influential actors in the world community; this since there is a belief that participation will lead to better democratic levels subsequent the process. Indeed, our instincts tell us that public participation is something good, and that it ought to have a positive impact on the state of democracy. Yet, this hypothesis has not been empirically validated. However, in order to be able to study and analyse this proposition, what "participation" actually means must firstly be established. What does it mean to "participate" in the context of building a constitution? In this paper I discuss how participation can be understood and how the concept can be operationalized to suit a constitution building context. To date, twenty "participatory" constitution building processes have been carried out in post-conflict contexts, during transitions from authoritarian rule or during other periods of institutional crisis. In this paper I engage in the operationalization of the concept of participation inductively; a classification schedule of participation has been developed while analysing the twenty cases of participatory constitution building processes. The proposed classification schedule illustrates great differences between various participatory processes and demonstrates that such processes are not homogenous in character. By operationalizing the concept such as proposed in this paper, the cut-off points between these variations are made clearer; something that has been missing from present research. I tentatively conclude that who the main instigators (the so called "drivers") of constitutional reform are has an effect on all procedural choices during the course of the process which has strong implications as to the nature and extent of public participation. When external actors are the leading drivers of the process it seems as if public participation is kept at a minimum level, whereas the possibility for participation is better when civil society organizations or a combination of various national actors are pushing the constitutional agenda. Work in progress. Please do not quote without permission from the author.