Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir: Rewriting Iceland’s Constitution
What better example of a country’s democratic resilience in the face of financial collapse than the move to toss its Constitution and bring on a handful of citizens to rewrite it from scratch? University of Iceland Political Science Professor Silja Ómarsdóttir was one of 25 people asked to revise Iceland’s most important document after the country’s financial meltdown in 2008.
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ABOUT Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir
“Prof. Silja Bára Ómarsdóttir is adjunct lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science at the University of Iceland. Her current research is focused on Icelandic Foreign and Security policy.
Prof. Ómarsdóttir explains how the citizens of Iceland reacted to the bank collapse (politely and when no action was taken, loudly) and the eventual response from the Government that included updating the country’s Constitution. She details the Constitution creation process and what it meant to overhaul the document, with considerable public input, in four months.
She completed a BA, with Honours, in international affairs from Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon and an MA in international relations from the University of Southern California, as well as a graduate diploma in methodology from the University of Iceland.
She is a Women’s Rights activist and has served on the Boards of the Icelandic Feminist Association, the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association, the UNIFEM National Committee in Iceland, and the Icelandic Gender Equality Council. In 2011 Silja served on Iceland’s Constitutional Council and was Chair of the Committee addressing Human Rights and Natural Resources.”
The VIDEO
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