—Natalia Morales Cerda, PhD student at Faculty of Laws, University College London (UCL) That “political representation” was –among many others and of a different nature– one of the causes of the categorical rejection of the constitutional draft proposed by Chile’s Constitutional Convention in the plebiscite of 4 September, seems to be somewhat agreed. Two columns
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – On Morals and Politics: The Chilean Constituent Process
—Rodrigo Kaufmann, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin Constituent Process and Dignity The reasons behind the rejection of the Chilean constitutional draft by the majority of Chileans are complex and hard to pin down. Many excellent contributions to this symposium provide interesting elements for a careful analysis. But there might still be one element that, perhaps, cuts across the
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – Dignity and Identity in the Chilean Constitutional Referendum
—Verónica Undurraga, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez The Chilean constituent process has attracted great international interest among constitutional scholars, politicians and advocates for social justice. In 2019, the violent social outbreak had Chilean democracy on a tightrope. However, with remarkable political responsibility, the troubled party system managed to open a political way out of the crisis, by
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – New forms of representation and the failure of the Chilean Constitutional Convention
—Maria Isabel Aninat Sahli, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Chile. How can we explain a constitutional process that began with 78% of voters in favor of drafting a new constitution in October 2020 and ended up two years later with 62% of the people opting for rejecting the proposal? What leads a country to flatly reject a
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – The Problem of “Identity” in the Chilean Constitutional Referendum
—João Vitor Cardoso, Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Chile In October 2020’s referendum, 78% of Chileans expressed their wish to replace the country’s Constitution, through a fully elected Constitutional Convention. On September 4, 2022, the citizenry was asked by way of a referendum whether it approved the constitutional draft produced by this very constitution-making
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum –The Illusion of Indigenous Representation
—Guillermo Pérez, Researcher at Instituto de Estudios de la Sociedad; Graduate Student of the Ph.D. in Government of the University of Texas at Austin. On September 4th, 2022, Chileans overwhelmingly rejected the text drafted by the Constitutional Convention, even after achieving levels of citizen participation that were widely considered unprecedented. The “reject” (“rechazo”) option alone
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – Participation, representation and deliberation in constitution-making: tentative ideas from the Chilean case
—Esteban Szmulewicz Ramírez, Leiden University and Universidad Católica del Norte, Chile[1] On September 4, 2022, Chile held a referendum on a new Constitution, drafted by a directly elected Constitutional Convention. The proposed text introduced interesting innovations, like gender parity in representative institutions, a high degree of decentralization through a so-called “regional State”, clear concern for climate
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – The Paradox of Constitution-Making in Democratic Settings. A Tradeoff between Party Renewal and Political Representation?
—Sergio Verdugo, IE University Law School Introduction In 1995, Jon Elster concluded his landmark article by identifying the paradoxes of constitution-making.[1] Constitution-making processes are unlikely to occur without the urgent need that a political crisis triggers. Even though political crises are arguably necessary for constitutional replacement processes, those crises can also create unfavorable conditions for
Introduction: Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum
—David Landau, Florida State University College of Law[1] On September 4, 2022, after a two month campaign, voters headed to the polls and rejected the draft Chilean constitution by an overwhelming margin – 62 to 38 percent. With mandatory voting in effect for the first time in recent years, turnout was extremely high. About 13
The New Chilean Constitutional Project in Comparative Perspective
—David Landau, Florida State University College of Law[1] The new Chilean constitutional text was delivered by the Constitutional Convention to President Gabriel Boric in a ceremony on July 4, 2022. This ended the year-long Constitutional Convention, itself sparked in large part by a set of massive social protests in 2019. The next step is the
