Constituent Assemblies

Constituent assemblies traditionally play a central role in processes of constitution-making, serving as the main actors in drafting new constitutions and the primary sites for deliberating on their content. To perform this role, assemblies have taken various forms and functions, which point to different paradigms and views of their legitimacy and authority. Gradually, as constitu-tion-making has evolved and become more complex, assemblies have been joined by other constituent actors to combine different forms of deliberation and political participation. Against this background, the present chapter sheds light on the evolving character of constituent assemblies as components of a broad set of entities that, together, contribute to elaborate a new constitu-tion. The analysis is structured as follows. Section I introduces and Section II addresses the nature and role of assemblies, pointing out the main forms they have taken historically and the underlying conceptions of their authority. Section III outlines how democratic constitution-making unfolds within assemblies, as a dynamic that combines mechanisms of representation, deliberation, and participation, and which forms part of a broader process also involving citizens, experts, and other constituent entities. On this basis, Section IV argues that assemblies serve as components of a system of constitution-making, and that, as such, we should address their nature and legitimacy consider-ing how they interact with the other components of that system.