—Johanna Fröhlich, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Facultad de Derecho Previous entries in this Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum have identified and analyzed key aspects of why the exit referendum about the new Chilean constitution was rejected. Reading these and other explanations, one can hardly deny the complexity of reasons behind the collective decision
I-CONnect Symposium on the Chilean Constitutional Referendum – Making Sense of Chile’s Failed Constituent Process
—Javier Couso, Universidad Diego Portales (Chile) and Utrecht University (The Netherlands) I. Last month, Chile’s second attempt to get a new Constitution in the last few years failed again. As opposed to the first constituent initiative (led by former President Bachelet, in 2014-2018, which can be better described as having been aborted), this time the
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
The First Week of the Chilean Constitutional Convention
—Lucas MacClure, Boston College The Chilean Constitutional Convention has begun the work that will lead, one hopes, to the replacement of Pinochet’s 1980 constitution. In this piece, I summarize the Convention’s first week and highlight themes we comparativists often discuss under the banner of the optimal design of constituent assemblies.[1] The first week of the
