Myanmar is in an important phase of its political transition. The opportunity for substantive federal reform, which is central to peacebuilding and democratisation, is present and being progressed through parallel elite level forums. However, these elite negotiations have serious limitations, as they fail to reach out to citizens, and contribute to polarisation and the perpetuation of extreme views regarding federalism. To address the absence of public deliberation on federalism in Myanmar, we organised five deliberative events based on the Deliberative Polling® methodology. This paper discusses some of the key findings and demonstrates how they can contribute to federal constitutional reform in Myanmar. It shows that when debating fundamental issues relating to identity and national sovereignty, public deliberation has moderation effects even in conflict-ridden deeply divided societies. Indeed, questions that related to the institutions associated with identity and religion had the highest quality of deliberation, opinion change and moderation. These more moderate and considered deliberated perspectives are of great value for dealing with the polarisation issue that Myanmar faces and demonstrate the potential of deliberative democracy tools to supplement and moderate electoral democracy and elite-driven constitutional change processes.

中文翻译：

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在国家认同和主权问题上缓和两极分化的立场：关于缅甸联邦制的审议调查

缅甸正处于政治转型的重要阶段。对建设和平和民主化至关重要的实质性联邦改革机会已经存在，并且正在通过平行的精英级别论坛取得进展。然而，这些精英谈判有严重的局限性，因为它们无法接触到公民，并导致两极分化和关于联邦主义的极端观点的长期存在。为了解决缅甸联邦制缺乏公众审议的问题，我们根据审议投票®方法组织了五场审议活动。本文讨论了一些关键发现，并展示了它们如何为缅甸的联邦宪法改革做出贡献。它表明，在辩论与身份和国家主权有关的基本问题时，即使在充满冲突的严重分裂社会中，公共协商也具有缓和作用。事实上，与身份和宗教相关的制度相关的问题具有最高质量的审议、意见变化和温和。这些更温和和深思熟虑的观点对于处理缅甸面临的两极分化问题具有重要价值，并展示了协商民主工具在补充和缓和选举民主和精英驱动的宪法变革进程方面的潜力。