S1 E11 The Icelandic Constitutional Assembly with Tom Ginsburg

Welcome back to the Peaceful Political Revolution in America podcast.

When you look around the world at different constitutions, and how political systems are formed, you quickly realize that they are all quite different, even amongst the democratic nations. Every democratic country does democracy a little differently, and the results vary just as much. 

The conditions which lead to a new constitution can be as unpredictable as the events that follow. Constitution building is risky and complicated, which is why it is so hard to do and so rarely achieved. When conditions are right, however, citizens can make significant and meaningful improvements to their form of government. That constitutional moment came to Iceland in 2008, and it has yet to be resolved. 

The Icelandic people will have to figure it out, in part because, in Iceland, it is the constituted powers that make that decision, not the constituent powers. In Iceland, it remains the responsibility of the government to adopt any new constitution, not the people. 

This is not the case in America. In America, that power, called sovereignty, rests with the people. With you and I. That is the truly radical and democratic principle upon which our nation was formed and it is what makes America a truly exceptional nation. It is the source if you will, of all our freedoms.

For most countries, a constitutional crisis is not just an opportunity to replace an unjust or corrupt political order, it is also an opportunity to reevaluate national and social objectives, to set the country on a new and better path. Hopefully, it is an opportunity to adopt a better and more effective form of representation.

In 1787, it was the realization that the political order was no longer adequate which gave birth to our new and present political system. As Madison put it in Federalist One, "AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America." 

Constitutional moments do not come along every decade, or even every century, yet it is common sense that as societies evolve so must their political systems. Like everything else in life, political and economic systems must continually adapt to new technologies and new challenges. If they do not, they may become vulnerable to corruption and gradually become ineffective and irrelevant.

It is beneficial for a nation to refresh its understanding of itself from time to time. The citizens must find agreement in their principles, and their objectives as a nation or divisions become rather permanent. They must consider the issues confronting them as a nation and when necessary, devise better ways of addressing the threats they face. 

It is a momentous occasion for any country to take a serious and long hard look at itself. To conceptualize a better process through which the vast majority of the citizens might be governed in a more just and equitable way is our most sacred duty as citizens. When we fail to do this, we fail to live up to the expectations of the very people who gave us this nation. 

Constitutions can be complex documents, but happily, there has been a lot of research and development in the field of democracy since our second constitution was created 230+ years ago. Today we can all look around the globe and see multiple examples of democracies, and that was not the case in 1787.

The United States was the first nation to place sovereignty in the hands of the people, and although you may believe, as I do, that the framers did a relatively bad job of getting a true democracy up and running, the responsibility to improve our constitution was never taken away from we the people. Our most