Doctoral Dissertation Research: Participatory Constitution-Making in Africa

1988年，乌干达开始了一项创新的宪法制定进程，持续了8年。这一过程的新颖之处在于公众广泛参与新宪法的制定。尽管决策者对这一模型有相当大的兴趣，但很少有实证研究调查这一过程的有效性。该项目将研究公众参与制宪过程对民主态度、政治行为和公民知识的影响。它将检验以下假设：参与制宪活动提高了公民对政治的兴趣，培养了对民主原则的依恋，导致了更多的政治参与，并增加了普通民众对政治问题的了解。该方法包括深度访谈、对公众的调查以及对乌干达公共和私人档案中主要材料的评估。调查将采用多州地区抽样过程进行，因此结果将适用于统计分析。

In 1988, Uganda embarked on an innovative constitution-making process that lasted eight years. The novelty of the process centered on the extensive involvement of the general public in the creation of a new constitution. Although there is considerable interest in this model among policy-makers, there is little empirical research investigating the effectiveness of such a process. This project will study the effects of public participation in the constitution-making process on democratic attitudes, political behaviors, and civic knowledge. It will test the hypotheses that participation in the constitution-making activities heightened citizen interest in politics, fostered attachment to democratic principles, led to greater political involvement, and increased knowledge of political issues within the general population. The methodology includes in-depth interviews, surveys of the general public, and evaluation of primary materials from public and private archives in Uganda. The surveys will be conducted using a multi-state area sampling process so the results will amenable to statistical analysis.