Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile.
In the past few decades, constitution-making processes have shifted from being undertakings performed by elites and closed off from the public to ones incorporating democratic mechanisms. Little is known, however, about the determinants of voluntary public participation and how they affect the outco...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2022-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267443 |
| _version_ | 1811289974657515520 |
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| author | María Paz Raveau Juan Pablo Couyoumdjian Claudio Fuentes-Bravo Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert Cristian Candia |
| author_facet | María Paz Raveau Juan Pablo Couyoumdjian Claudio Fuentes-Bravo Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert Cristian Candia |
| author_sort | María Paz Raveau |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | In the past few decades, constitution-making processes have shifted from being undertakings performed by elites and closed off from the public to ones incorporating democratic mechanisms. Little is known, however, about the determinants of voluntary public participation and how they affect the outcomes of the deliberative process in terms of content and quality. Here, we study the process of constituent involvement in the rewriting of Chile's constitution in 2016. A total of 106, 412 citizens in 8, 113 different local encounters voluntarily congregated in groups of ten or more to collectively determine what social rights should be considered for inclusion in the new constitution, deliberating and then articulating in the written word why should be included. We brought our data to statistical regression models at the municipality level, the results show that the main determinants associated with increasing citizen participation are educational level, engagement in politics, support for the government, and Internet access. In contrast, population density and the share of Evangelical Christians in the general population decrease citizen participation. Then, we further analyze the written arguments for each collectively-selected constitutional rights. The findings suggest that groups from socioeconomically developed municipalities (with higher educational levels and where the main economic activities are more distant from natural resources), on average, deliberate consistently more about themes, concepts, and ideas compared to groups from less developed municipalities. These results provide an empirical ground on the driver factors of voluntary citizen participation and on the benefits and disadvantages of deliberative democracy. Hence, results can inform the organization of new deliberative processes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T04:03:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-a8ce1825bbda41acb0be59ed8e36c7bb |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T04:03:36Z |
| publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-a8ce1825bbda41acb0be59ed8e36c7bb2022-12-22T03:03:23ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032022-01-01176e026744310.1371/journal.pone.0267443Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile.María Paz RaveauJuan Pablo CouyoumdjianClaudio Fuentes-BravoCarlos Rodriguez-SickertCristian CandiaIn the past few decades, constitution-making processes have shifted from being undertakings performed by elites and closed off from the public to ones incorporating democratic mechanisms. Little is known, however, about the determinants of voluntary public participation and how they affect the outcomes of the deliberative process in terms of content and quality. Here, we study the process of constituent involvement in the rewriting of Chile's constitution in 2016. A total of 106, 412 citizens in 8, 113 different local encounters voluntarily congregated in groups of ten or more to collectively determine what social rights should be considered for inclusion in the new constitution, deliberating and then articulating in the written word why should be included. We brought our data to statistical regression models at the municipality level, the results show that the main determinants associated with increasing citizen participation are educational level, engagement in politics, support for the government, and Internet access. In contrast, population density and the share of Evangelical Christians in the general population decrease citizen participation. Then, we further analyze the written arguments for each collectively-selected constitutional rights. The findings suggest that groups from socioeconomically developed municipalities (with higher educational levels and where the main economic activities are more distant from natural resources), on average, deliberate consistently more about themes, concepts, and ideas compared to groups from less developed municipalities. These results provide an empirical ground on the driver factors of voluntary citizen participation and on the benefits and disadvantages of deliberative democracy. Hence, results can inform the organization of new deliberative processes.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267443 |
| spellingShingle | María Paz Raveau Juan Pablo Couyoumdjian Claudio Fuentes-Bravo Carlos Rodriguez-Sickert Cristian Candia Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile. PLoS ONE |
| title | Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile. |
| title_full | Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile. |
| title_fullStr | Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile. |
| title_short | Citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate: Voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in Chile. |
| title_sort | citizens at the forefront of the constitutional debate voluntary citizen participation determinants and emergent content in chile |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267443 |
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