Theories of participatory and deliberative democracy contend that participatory and inclusive constitution-making processes are more likely to generate democratic outcomes than the traditional, elite-led approaches. The empirical evidence, however, has remained inconclusive and the propositions mostly normative. Using an original data from 195 constitutions promulgated in 118 countries since 1974, this study examines the impact of participatory and inclusive processes on the democratic content of constitutions. Building on the recently developed conjectures in the literature, this study introduces two original measures for individual-level public participation and aggregate-level group inclusion in constitution-making processes. The statistical analysis provides compelling empirical evidence that increased public participation is associated with an increased number of democratic provisions in constitutions, indicating that broad participatory processes can improve the democratic content of constitutions. Group inclusion, however, is not a significant predictor of the content of constitutions. The findings offer empirical support for participatory and deliberative theories of democracy and their prediction on democratic outcomes of participatory processes.

中文翻译：

---

宪法的参与、包容和民主内容

参与性和协商民主理论认为，参与性和包容性的宪法制定过程比传统的、精英主导的方法更有可能产生民主成果。然而，经验证据仍然没有定论，而且这些命题大多是规范性的。本研究使用自 1974 年以来在 118 个国家颁布的 195 部宪法的原始数据，考察了参与性和包容性过程对宪法民主内容的影响。本研究以文献中最近发展的猜想为基础，在制宪过程中引入了个人层面的公众参与和总体层面的群体包容的两种原始措施。统计分析提供了令人信服的经验证据，表明公众参与的增加与宪法中民主条款数量的增加有关，表明广泛的参与过程可以改善宪法的民主内容。然而，群体包容性并不是宪法内容的重要预测指标。研究结果为参与式和协商式民主理论及其对参与过程的民主结果的预测提供了实证支持。