Reconstituting Tunisia: Participation, Deliberation, and the Content of Constitution

Abstract

The Tunisian constitutional reform experience in the wake of the Arab Spring—through which citizens were able to meet with their representatives, participate in public deliberation over the constitution, and offer their own proposals for the constitution—offers a unique opportunity to evaluate the debate on the optimal modality of constitutional processes by revisiting both deliberative and representative theories of democracy and their predictions on how the process can improve constitutional outcomes. The statistical analysis of a dataset of more than 2,500 citizen proposals and the content of three constitutional drafts shows that 43 percent of public proposals were included in the final draft of the constitution. The results also demonstrate that public input related to rights and freedoms is more likely to be reflected in the constitution compared to other public proposals. This article suggests that more inclusive processes can lead to more democratic constitutional outcomes, although this impact is contingent upon the incorporation of particular consensus-building institutions.