Bridging gender and constitutional concerns: how participation changes the process and agenda of constitutional debate

Wider participation stands to change the process and outcome of political debate. But in what ways? How does women’s participation, and particularly the participation of disadvantaged and disengaged women, change the process and form of constitutional debate? Some expect that it will lead to an escape from zero-sum conflict, but how this happens (the mechanisms) and what alternative agenda emerges (a move away from constitutionalism or a change in its content?) remains uncertain. In recent primary research in Ireland North and South, where constitutional debate over a potential united Ireland has reemerged, we found grass-roots women were deeply alienated from the language of debate and concerned to refocus discussion on issues connected with their daily experience – socio-economic issues and gender and reproductive rights. This paper reports findings from our current phase of research, designed to explore how and if grass-roots participants connect these issues with questions of state sovereignty, territorial boundaries and ethno-religious division. We design experimental mini-deliberative cafés on contentious socio-economic/gender issues, involving diverse cross-border and cross-community groups of disengaged and disadvantaged women networked via women community networks. Our paper outlines the context, experimental participative-deliberative method, and empirical findings of this research. Do women engaged in discussion on contentious experiential issues link the debate to wider issues – whether by moving ‘up’ to constitutional or ethnic division, sideways to common values, and/or reframing the constitutional and rethinking their place in the given political groups – and with what policy implications for the ongoing constitutional debate in Ireland.