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Ireland's Evolving Constitution
... Most recently, two referendums on marriage equality and abortion revealed a clear rupture with past values and behaviours: in 2015 and 2018 large majorities of Irish citizens voted in favour of the liberalisation agenda. These referendums were preceded by another participatory practice: deliberative mini-publics of randomly selected citizens, who discussed and evaluated the key issues (Farrell and Harris, 2019;Suiter et al., 2016Suiter et al., , 2018. ...
The outcomes of two recent Irish referendums - on marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018 - have placed contemporary Irish voters in sharp contrast with their long-standing conservative Catholic reputation. These referendums also stand out internationally because of an associated deliberative innovation. This paper aims to explain the watershed abortion vote drawing on theories of generational change, issue-voting, cue-taking and deliberative democracy, using data from an exit poll at the 2018 abortion referendum. We show that cleavage and age effects are key to understanding the referendum outcome. These results offer insight into how societal processes such as rapid secularisation, generational replacement and democratic innovations shape politics. Moreover, voters who were aware of the deliberative innovation were more likely to support the liberal referendum option. To increase willingness to deviate from the status quo, engaging citizens actively in the debate is a fruitful approach.
... In its manifesto Fine Gael set out this rather curious rationale relating to the ageing topic: 'As part of the plans to mark the centenary of the 1916 rebellion, the Assembly will also be asked to examine how we should, as a republic, best respond to both the challenges and opportunities of an ageing population' (Fine Gael, 2016, p. 101). There is no mention of the other two topics (referenda and fixed-term parliaments) in the Fine Gael manifesto, though it is known that there are concerns in government circles that the increasing regularity of referendums in Ireland (Suiter, Farrell, & Harris, 2018) may lead to referendum fatigue on the part of voters, prompting some to call for 'referendum days' in which bundles of referendums might be taken together. The assumption is that the topic of fixed-term parliaments was added as an item to placate the concerns of the Independent Alliance who were anxious to avoid being wrong-footed by the Taoiseach calling a snap election. ...
Ireland has become something of a trail-blazer in the use of deliberative methods in the process of constitutional review. It is the first case in which the process has been employed a second time: the Irish Citizens’ Assembly (2016–18) followed upon the Convention on the Constitution (2012–14). The creation of two mini-publics in quick succession and their significant role in supporting key referendums for constitutional change that followed (marriage equality in 2015 and abortion in 2018) suggests a degree of ‘systemization’ of deliberation in the Irish process of constitutional review. This report sets out the basic details of the most recent Citizens’ Assembly – how it was set up, its agenda, its manner of operation, and its outcomes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the recent Irish experience of constitutional mini-publics and the degree to which they speak to a process of systematizing deliberation in the Irish policy process.
... Without exact guidelines one can think about the Swiss direct democracy, or the (more or less failed) Irish and Icelandic constitutional reform experiences with strong people's participation. Abouth these latter attempts see Suiter et al. (2018), and respectively (Bergsson 2018). Is There Such Thing as 'Populist Constitutionalism'? ...
The paper deals with recent deviations from the shared values of constitutionalism towards a kind of ‘populist, illiberal constitutionalism’ introduced by Hungary’s new constitution in 2011. The populism of FIDESZ was directed against all elites, including the ones that designed the 1989 constitutional system (in which FIDESZ also participated), claiming that it was time for a new revolution. This is why PM Viktor Orbán characterized the results of the 2010 elections as a ‘revolution of the ballot boxes’. His intention with this revolution was to eliminate all checks and balances, and even the parliamentary rotation of governing parties. His vision for a new constitutional order—one in which his political party occupies the centre stage of Hungarian political life and puts an end to debates over values—has now been entrenched in the new constitution. The paper argues that this current Hungarian constitutional system was made possible by FIDESZ’ anti-pluralist nationalist populism, but is not necessarily based on a true commitment to expressing the will of the people via ‘illiberal constitutionalism’. The populist government rather misuses the country’s lack of constitutional culture. Adherence to constitutional patriotism would mean that FIDESZ would have to endorse what John Rawls once called ‘constitutional essentials’. The core of this kind of constitutional patriotism is a constitutional culture centred on universalist liberal democratic norms and values. Instead, the current Hungarian constitutional system is confronted with unconstitutional patriotism, a kind of nationalism that violates constitutional essentials in the name of ‘national constitutional identity’.
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