The Joint IDEA –NIMD Journal, Second Issue: Democratic Design (Diseño Democratico)

In recent years, Ecuador experienced an intensive process of democratic design and institutional change with the most recent being the 2007 constitutional process, designed to produce a new constitution that would lay the foundations for a new democratic model and overcome political crises that had lasted many years. The new Constitution(2008) introduced important innovations, such as extension of three to five constitutional duties and the introduction of the concept of Good Living. In this publication, a number of authors take the new Constitution as the basis for reflection on various aspects of democratic design in Ecuador. Key issues addressed include the division of powers and the state model (Avila Ortiz Mauge Mosquera, Guzman, Granda Aguilar and Kon Cedeño), the concept of Good Living as a basis for a new model (Martínez Dalmau and Montúfar Mancheno), the Multinational State (Velasque Tigs), extending to sub-state (Carrasco Carpio), the coexistence of the patterns of participation and representation (Vásconez Arteaga), and finally, the historical perspective (Moncayo Gallegos and Borja Bonilla).