This doctoral dissertation aims at studying the relationships between the perceptions of federalism and the preferences for its future, through deliberative citizens panels which offer beter informed opinions and through a comparison of four fields of investigation whose dynamics converge and diverge. The rationale of this endeavour is twofold. On the one hand, studies – which are usually quantitative – on the opinions about federalism focus mainly on a few dimensions, leaving aside a deeper investigation of all the factors at stake. A qualitative approach may therefore offer a more comprehensive understanding of the relations between perceptions and preferences. On the other hand, such an analysis of the citizens’ opinions and especially of the diversity of their positions on this issue bears the potential to shed light on the federal dynamics in their country. This endeavour seems even more fruitful that it compares four political contexts where the future of federalism is persistently a hot topic. To fulfil this objective, a specific method – the deliberative citizens panels – was developed in order to collect beter informed opinions through a dual process of information and interaction, across the four different fields: Liège in French-speaking Belgium, Antwerp in Dutch-speaking Belgium, Kingston in English-Canada and Montréal in Québec. To do so, the thesis is divided in three parts. The first part puts forward the general and the methodological framework of the research. Thus, chapter 1 presents the origins, the formation and the evolution of federalism in Belgium and in Canada. On this background, chapter 2 builds the method and the methodology behind the deliberative citizens panels. The second part explores each specific field in order to draw from the empirical data several ideal types which summarize the different visions of federalism. Chapters 3 and 4 present the results respectively of the French-speaking Belgium panel and the Dutch-speaking Belgium panel while chapters 5 and 6 analyze the data ...