CIVILUX was an academic-led project by the Research Chair in Parliamentary Studies as part of the referendum campaign on the revision of the Luxembourg constitution. In total, 27 citizens were invited to offer an advisory opinion on four referendum questions across 1 day.
Problems and Purpose
Background History and Context
Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities
Participant Recruitment and Selection
Methods and Tools Used
What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation
First, 27 citizens obtained informative documents regarding the topics of the referendum. The topics were the following:
- Do you agree with the idea that Luxembourg people between the ages of 16 -18 have the right to opt-in on the electoral lists in order to participate as voters in the elections, such as the Chamber of Deputies, European, communal elections and referendums?
- Do you believe that non-Luxembourgish residents should have the right to register on the electoral rolls on an optional basis in order to participate as electors in elections?
- Do you approve the idea of limiting a person’ maximum period of serving in a government on a continuous basis to ten years?
- Do you agree that state is no longer obliged to fund ministries of cult?
The next stage was the citizens’ panel organized by scholars in May 2014. The participants were divided in groups by the referendum topics.
Influence, Outcomes, and Effects
The outcomes of the consultation were manifold. First, the synthesis of the main arguments of each group were presented to the political leaders of the different parties at the end of the consultation. Second, the participants were also asked whether experts should produce an official document of the opinions expressed during the consultation, which could then be distributed to all households during the campaign. This was eventually called “Voter’s Guide” inspired by the Citizens’ Initiative Review set up in the State of Oregon (USA). Overall, the citizen consultation in Luxembourg sheds new light on the citizens’ opinion on the specified referendum issues.
Moreover, it resulted in the following:
- enhanced level of knowledge of the referendum issues amongst citizens;
- enhanced level of understanding of the language used in the referendum questions;
- increased understanding of the initial opinions on the referendum questions;
- evolution of the opinions throughout and following the consultation (measured by questionnaires distributed prior to the consultation and after it);
- identification of the main arguments for and against the topics;
- identification of the arguments that might have changed some participants’ opinions.
Finally, the experiment should be useful for expanding the forms of participatory democracy beyond constitutional review alone, especially in limited co-legislation processes.
Analysis and Lessons Learned
See Also
References
External Links
Notes
This entry is based on the POLITICIZE dataset. More information can be found at the following links:
- Paulis, Emilien; Pilet, Jean-Benoit; Panel, Sophie; Vittori, Davide; Close, Caroline, 2020, "POLITICIZE Dataset", https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Z7X6GT, Harvard Dataverse, V1
- Pilet J-B, Paulis E, Panel S.,Vitori D & Close C. 202X The POLITICIZE Dataset: an inventory of Deliberative Mini-Publics (DMPs) in Europe. European Political Science.