A Constitution by the People? Deliberative and Direct Democracy in the Romanian 2013 Reform

The practice of constitutional reform indicates that the process is tedious, requires long periods of time, a relatively broad consensus among the political actors, and involves consultation with the population. In spite of these features, some new European democracies have repeatedly changed their constitutions. Romania is a representative case in which discussions for the third constitution in 20 years were initiated in 2013. Unlike the previous constitutional adoptions that involved citizens only in the final stage (i.e. approval through binding referendum), the 2013 reform has introduced the deliberative dimension in the form of constitutional forums / mini-publics. This paper focuses on the particular combination of deliberative and direct democracy and aims to explain its emergence and functioning. Our qualitative analysis focuses on the causes of constitutional forums, their mechanisms, consequences for the reform, and linkages with the referendum. We use both primary (interviews with participants) and secondary data (reports).