{Political participation and constitution-making: the case of Chile} {07} Political participation and constitution-making: the case of Chile Claudia Heiss* {Introduction} Democracy has reached the greatest normative legitimacy in the history of this political regime. Paradoxically, it also faces the deepest crisis of its working and institutions. The real possibility of the governed to participate in decision-making and the role of economic interests in politics lead to questioning political representation as an efective mechanism for self-government. Citizen apathy and decreasing support for political parties and labor unions are, for some, a sure sign of the inevitable decay of democracy. Phenomena like Brexit and leaders like Vladimir Putin, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Viktor Orban or Donald Trump embody the populist and authoritarian trends of the third counter-wave of democracy announced in 1991 by Samuel Huntington. While worrisome, this crisis of political representation also opens an unprecedented opportunity to reform and deepen democracy. New legitimating mechanisms include higher levels of transparency and participation in political decision-making. In constitutional debates, issues formerly restricted to experts and representatives are becoming increasingly open. Participation and inclusiveness seem to be requisites for a Constitution to be legitimate and to produce adherence. Colombia 1991, Iceland 2010, Ireland 2012-2014, and Tunisia 2011 are examples of participative processes intended (not always successfully) to create new constitutions. Following this tendency, Chile developed in 2015- 2016 a pre-constituent process meant to open constitutional deliberation to citizens. After the military coup of 1973, the dictatorship-made 1980 Constitution dramatically reversed the increasing levels of social inclusion and participation the country had reached under the 1925 Constitution. The government of Michelle Bachelet sought to address the illegitimacy of the Constitution through a constitution-making process that included a participatory phase of public deliberation and an institutional phase for decision-making. The deliberative stage appeared as a “citizen” inclusive exercise, separated from the traditionally divisive political debate. The goal of this report is to analyze and evaluate the participatory dimension of the pre- constituent consultation and deliberation process developed in Chile in 2015-2016, as well as to situate this experience in the context of Chile’s constitutional history and in relation to recent scholarly debates about political participation. The irst section discusses the concept of * Assistant Professor, Public Afairs Institute, University of Chile.