17:45 - 20:00
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Torun Dewan
Discussant/s:
Pau Vall-Prat
Meeting Room L

Brenda Van Coppenolle, Alexandra Cirone
The Deliberative Constitution: Lotteries in Denmark's 1848 Constituent Assembly

Torun Dewan, Christopher Kam, Jaakko Meriläinen, Janne Tukiainen
Candidate Exit and Voter Loyalty during Early Democratization

Anders Wieland
The Long-Run Impact of the Viking Settlements in Medieval England

Bastian Becker
State-Church Synergies in Colonial Empires: Longitudinal Evidence on Missionary Expansion in Africa

Lotem Halevy
Who gets to play? A typology of the dynamics behind enfranchisement across Europe
The Deliberative Constitution: Lotteries in Denmark's 1848 Constituent Assembly
Brenda Van Coppenolle 1, Alexandra Cirone 2
1 University of Essex
2 Cornell University

A constitution is the foundation of any democracy, and its wording shapes the path of democratic development. Does deliberation in random groups affect the composition and ultimate development of a constitution? Here, we test deliberative theories of citizens assemblies in a legislative context. National policy was deliberated in randomly assigned groups of legislators, creating the 1849 June Constitution in Denmark. Using a panel of legislators and roll call votes, we find evidence for substantial and significant deliberative effects, but these go in different directions in different groups. Lottery-based procedures encouraged deliberation during a period of democratization without developed parties, resulting in the constitution that governs Denmark to this day. Our results highlight the need to better understand promising deliberative mechanisms driving behaviour in random assemblies, before transplanting randomisation to national arenas where the stakes are high.