Across the world, the significance or role of Constitutions is too often understood in ways that ignore how they actually touch the lives or shape the political imaginations of ordinary people. Similarly, countries in the Global South, those that are not conventional liberal democracies, and those that have recently experienced conflict are generally underrepresented in the comparative constitutional law literature. Drawing on ethnographic insights and case-studies in Cambodia, this book provides a socio-legal account of constitutional practice under authoritarian rule and sheds light on how otherwise overlooked actors engage with constitutional language and assert constitutional agency. The Cambodian constitution is often dismissed as irrelevant, but its promises, principles and specific provisions actually matter deeply, both to the politically engaged and to ordinary people. This book highlights how many everyday contestations – over politics, religion and culture – take place In the Shadow of the Constitution.

‘Original, thoughtful and deeply incisive, Lawrence’s book brings into view the societal life of constitutional law in Cambodia, a country that has been neglected in discussions in comparative constitutional law. Through a series of well-researched and evocative case studies, Lawrence sheds light on the everyday forms of constitutional discourse and agency that shape Cambodians’ lives outside and ‘in the shadow’ of the high-legal contexts that scholars usually associate with constitutional law, such as courts and constituent assemblies. Lawrence gives us a glimpse of constitutional law as it is used by journalists, activists, aid workers, performers, artists, filmmakers, petty bureaucrats and Buddhist monks—people far away from elite law. In these quotidian spaces, he shows us, the constitution has a role and influence quite different from its (mis)use by the country’s ruling regime. Lawrence’s book makes an important contribution to the growing field of constitutional ethnography as well as to the social-legal studies of Southeast Asia.’

Benjamin Schonthal - Professor and Head of the Religion Programme and Affiliate Professor in Law, University of Otago and Director of the Otago Centre for Law and Society

‘Deftly and ingeniously crafted, Lawrence’s book is a masterly expose of micropolitical contestation over constitutional meaning that hits the very nerve of the fervid contest over ideas about authority and legitimacy, authenticity and imposition, that forms the very stuff that Cambodian political life is made of.’

Astrid Norén-Nilsson - Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University

‘This beautifully written account of constitutional practices in Cambodia challenges top-down approaches in comparative constitutional studies by examining how constitutionalism is shaped from the ground up. It is essential reading for scholars interested in how constitutions impact everyday practices beyond official state-centric frameworks, providing crucial insights for understanding constitutionalism in new and emerging democracies.’

Jaclyn Neo - Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, National University of Singapore