Underrepresented Groups and Constitution-Making: The Mexico City Case
| Author | Ernesto Cruz Ruiz |
| Published date | 01 May 2021 |
| Date | 01 May 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920944825 |
| Subject Matter | Symposium: Democratic Deliberation and Under-Represented Groups |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920944825
Political Studies Review
2021, Vol. 19(2) 164 –170
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920944825
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Underrepresented Groups
and Constitution-Making:
The Mexico City Case
Ernesto Cruz Ruiz
Abstract
Citizen calls and opportunities for more inclusion in democratic processes are on the rise,
triggering the creation of innovative mechanisms to include more demands and stakeholders in
decision-making. This article shows how political determination opened up the 2016 Constitution-
making of Mexico City and examines the extent to which technology helped add and manage
citizen inputs to their constitution. Empirically, it shows the stages and stakeholder deliberations
and how collaborative writing, online petitions, and extensive surveys facilitated the inclusion
of otherwise underrepresented groups’ agendas in a constitutional text. In general, the central
argument of this symposium paper is that the combination of actor decisions and use of technology
contribute positively to crafting participative, inclusive and informed constitutions.
Keywords
inclusiveness, democratic innovations, constitution-making, citizen participation,
underrepresented groups
Accepted: 3 July 2020
Introduction
What does constitution-making at the regional level look like? Mexico City’s constitu-
tion-making is described in this article, highlighting how and why Mexico City’s gov-
ernment made this process participative and deliberative. Whereas scholarship about
constitution-making focuses, inter alia, on characteristics of national constitutions
(Ginsburg, 2012), and the effects of constitution-making on a nation’s level of democ-
racy (Eisenstadt et al., 2017), this symposium paper contrasts Mexico City’s technologi-
cal and inclusive constitution-making with Iceland’s case (Landemore, 2015), and
process design (Elster, 2012), to enhance understanding regarding inclusiveness and
design of constitution-making. Furthermore, the article observes the reasons shaping
TUM School of Governance, Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany
Corresponding author:
Ernesto Cruz Ruiz, TUM School of Governance, Technische Universität München, Richard-Wagner-Straße 1,
80333 Munich, Germany.
Email: ernesto.cruz.ruiz@tum.de
944825PSW0010.1177/1478929920944825Political Studies ReviewCruz Ruiz
research-article2020
Symposia and New Ideas
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