Institutional design as a means to concrete the democratic principle of citizen participation

Abstract

This article sets out the minimum conditions that the institutional design of citizen participation should contain, so that it can be considered good, and that, as a constitutional democratic principle, it can be specified. All this, from the Theory of public choice, and within the context of Colombian Constitutional Law. It is concluded that said design must not only have internal and external coherence, and contain the characteristic aspects of the democratic principle; rather, it must limit behaviors to prevent public decision makers from favoring their own interests instead of the general ones.