Participatory Citizenship, Constitutional Reform, and the Conference on the Future of Europe

The paper discusses a broader tendency towards participatory citizenship as an intrinsic part of a wider development of rethinking democracy. The focus is on participation in constitutional reform - as a core dimension of reimagining democracy - in a variety of manifestations and intensities. It will also briefly discuss various stages of constitutional reform processes in which participation may be considered, using a number of examples of reform processes. The Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE) in the EU is discussed, which, while not a constitutional reform process in strict terms, may be understood as a pre-constituent endeavour with broad involvement of citizens, and with a more or less broad reform mandate. As such, the CoFoE may provide a highly promising and complex case-study. In the concluding part, some of the benefits as well as pitfalls of participatory citizenship in constitutional reform will be discussed.