Thorvaldur Gylfason is Professor of Economics at the University of Iceland. He was one of 25 representatives in Iceland‘s Constitutional Council in session from April to July 2011, elected by the nation and appointed by parliament to revise Iceland’s constitution.
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Published in: openDemocracyUKIceland shows that a UK constitutional convention should involve politicians as little as possibleThe people of Iceland drafted a new constitution. But their parliament has essentially ignored it.
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Published in: Can Europe Make It?Democracy on ice: a post-mortem of the Icelandic constitutionIn spite of clear popular support, Iceland's new crowd-sourced constitution was recently killed by politicians. An ex-member of the constitutional council sheds some light on what happened - and why there might still be some hope for this unique experiment.
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Published in: HomeIceland: direct democracy in action
The Icelandic experiment raises many intriguing questions: how do citizens of a country get called to this office? How do they draft a new constitution? What sort of political forces do they have to balance? An insider view from a former member of the Constitutional Council.