When Institutional Reform Provides New Avenues for Citizens’ Involvement: The Change of Constitutions through Participatory Processes

Several Constitutions of sovereign states (e. g. Iceland, Ecuador, Bolivia and partly Brazil) have been recently approved by (or integrating some) participatory processes. Moreover, in some of these cases, the constitution provides rules assuring public participation in many political proceedings, so extending participation to the next phases of law-making. This implementation of participatory procedures means that their development proves to be applicable to the maximum level of the legal experience, notwithstanding the great difficulties they present. Could we think that a new perspective is open in the field of “Democratization of Democracy”? The paper reflects on this “scaling up” of participation and the changes of perspectives which it requires in order to be able to open a virtuous circle which can further expand participation in the democratic life of a country, providing new incentives at different institutional levels of the concerned countries, and renewing the interpretation of subsidiarity principles.