Chinese traditional culture is perceived as a sustaining factor for political trust within the authoritarian regime. Given the complexity and multidimensionality of Chinese cultural traditions, it is inadequate to address this notion through a singular index. This chapter categorizes Chinese traditional values into two dimensions: a nonpolitical dimension, encompassing traditional family and social values, and a political dimension, which includes traditional political values. I then empirically examine how these varying dimensions of Chinese cultural traditions influence ordinary people’s orientations toward political institutions and government officials.

This chapter synthesises the findings of the previous five chapters, weaving the distinct strands into a cohesive picture of micro-political constitutional contestation in Cambodia. As such, it highlights key themes that have run throughout the empirical cases, including ideas about authority and legitimacy, imposition and legal transplants, processes of translation, and the relationship of constitutions to ideas of order and stability. While drawing on lessons from Cambodia, I emphasise the comparative applicability and insight of the approach, and its associated range of methods. Hence, the chapter also contains comparative references to similar practices in other jurisdictions, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on jurisdictions in Asia. Rather than striving to provide a comprehensive set of comparison, this section overtly aims to be indicative: drawing attention to instances where existing literature on constitutions has already discussed micro-political contestations without explicitly acknowledging or analysing them as such, and gesturing towards places where a similar approach would elicit new and important insights. Fundamentally, it argues that viewing constitutions in authoritarian regimes merely as ‘shams’ obscures more constitutional reality than it illuminates.

Opening with an anecdote about a political analyst who was admonished – and threatened – in the media by then Prime Minister Hun Sen for having the temerity to publicly question the constitutionality of a government policy, this introductory chapter introduces the reader to one of the central themes of the book – contestation over the ‘ownership’ of the constitution and the right to constitutional interpretation. After an overview of developments in the comparative constitutional studies literature, which highlights the extent to which ‘top-down’ and ‘court-centric’ approaches still prevail, I go on to explain how an approach to micro-political constitutional contestation can help illuminate constitutional practices that might otherwise be left hidden in the shadows. The reader is then introduced to the Cambodia case study: first, through an abbreviated account of Cambodia’s modern political history, and then via a more detailed explanation of the specific factors that have shaped constitutional practice in recent years. The chapter closes with some reflections on methodology and an overview of the structure of the book.

The only chapter to focus primarily on the state, Chapter 3 examines the way in which the Constitution has been understood ‘from above’ by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP). Specifically, it focuses on the CPP’s weaponisation of constitutional language and process, as exemplified by debates over the protection supposedly provided by parliamentary immunity and by the Supreme Court’s 2017 decision to dissolve the CPP’s primary electoral opponent, the Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP). These examples, I argue, provide powerful and prescient examples of the way in which constitutional procedure, rather than being entirely overridden by the government, has in fact been used to undermine what would otherwise be considered some of the key normative contents of the constitutional document. In particular, I suggest, the constitutional language of ‘stability’ and ‘public order’ provide a subtext for the CPP’s reading of the formal Constitution that legitimises – or even necessitates – the overriding of democracy. As such, this chapter suggests that, rather than reflecting an absence of constitutionalism and rule of law, Cambodia can in fact be understood to exhibit characteristics of a ‘thick’ strain of ‘authoritarian constitutionalism’ that is rooted in a privileging of ‘law and order’.

This chapter shows how local lawyers and NGOs have sought to challenge the practice of ‘authoritarian constitutionalism’, including in the courtroom. Yet, even when the courts appear to take centre stage here, the audience and message for courtroom performances are unexpected. This chapter explains that lawyers who articulate constitutionally-framed arguments in high-profile court cases often see themselves as speaking first and foremost to journalists and NGO observers in the gallery, and thus to the local public and international stakeholders to whom those observers in turn report. To the extent that courts play a role in constitutional practice, in other words, they do so as a stage on which contestations can be performed for a wider audience. Hence, this chapter develops a concept of an ‘extended legal complex’, which seeks to capitalise on the ruling party’s desire to maintain at least a semblance of fidelity to the legal process to articulate critiques of alternative interpretations of the Constitution before a national and international audience. The chapter then explains how the Cambodian People’s Party has sought to neutralise this threat to their constitutional legitimacy by politicising the Bar Association, thereby hamstringing the work of activist-lawyers and legally complicating their relationships with local NGOs.

Shifting the focus of constitutional enquiry almost entirely beyond the reach of state institutions, this chapter highlights the extent to which newly imposed constitutional norms have, since 1993, fundamentally challenged understandings of the relationship between religion and politics in Cambodia. Constitutional language, the chapter demonstrates, has come to infuse internal debates within the Buddhist Sangha, where constitutional guarantees of universal suffrage sit awkwardly alongside traditional expectations of monks existing above the corrupting world of secular politics. With the state having declined to intervene, despite requests for it to do so from Buddhist leaders, this chapter shows how the sangha has itself become a site of micro-political constitutional contestation, as many monks have come to understand themselves as having a dual identity as both religious figures and as citizens. Meanwhile, I go on to show, the constitutional extension of the franchise to Buddhist monks coincided with an increased political activism within the sangha, as some monks have interpreted this dual identity as justifying – or even requiring – the adoption of a more ‘engaged’ approach to social- and environmental-justice issues.

Expanding the horizons of constitutional practice further, this chapter shows how the meanings and implications of the Cambodian Constitution – and particularly the mandate it gives the state to protect Cambodian culture and tradition – have been shaped by artists, filmmakers, and performers. The chapter begins by introducing the reader to the Ministry of Culture’s ‘Code of Conduct for Artists and Performers’, which was introduced in 2016. Then, drawing on interviews with a number of artists from around Cambodia, as well as representatives from the Ministry of Culture, I suggest that the Code of Conduct represents a profound and widely shared anxiety about the meaning of modern Cambodian culture and national identity. In negotiating this fraught terrain, Cambodian artists explain how they have either directly challenged or avoided the regulations. In so doing, this disparate group has elaborated its own interpretation of the Constitution, and offered its own definition of the ideas of ‘national culture’ and ‘good traditions’ contained therein. The result is both a micro-level account of constitutional contestation and an exploration of how art, culture, and constitutionalism intertwine, as the artists in question effectively shape the meaning of the Constitution from below, and thus effectively become constitutional actors themselves.

This chapter focuses on the moment in which, and the means by which, Cambodia’s 1993 Constitution was made. I begin with an overview of the peace-building process, from the negotiation of the Paris Peace Accords to the arrival of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia to democratic elections and the formation of a coalition government. Then, I reflect on the growing literature that studies constitution-making processes, and particularly post-conflict constitution-making processes, to lay out some of the central considerations that are at play in processes like that which took place in Cambodia. Next, I provide a detailed account of how Cambodia’s constitution-making process proceeded. Rather than offering a comprehensive account of the process, however, I take a thematic approach, focusing on the roles of international actors, domestic elites, and, finally, public participation. In addition to there being a notable degree of ‘self-dealing’ and ‘deciding not to decide’ by political elites, I conclude, the constitution-making process was characterised by the international community’s ‘locking-in’ of formal commitments to liberal democracy and a ‘locking-out’ of public participation that prevented local voices from being heard by the constitution-makers themselves.

The violence in Sasun was interpreted differently after investigations by missionaries, by foreign consuls, and by the regime of Sultan Abdülhamid II. The Ottomans relied almost exclusively on a single legitimist report that became the state’s measure of "truth." To retain a monopoly of legitimate narrative, the Ottoman state utilized various forms of censorship – banning newspapers from abroad, forbidding any independent discussion of Sasun in the Ottoman press, preventing peasants from the area from traveling, and eventually banning all foreign journalists. At the same time, news of the massacres spread through word of mouth, and rumors of the Sasun violence increased tensions throughout the Ottoman Empire. When news of the violence reached London through missionary networks in mid-November 1894, it ignited a much larger debate about the British government’s support for the autocracy of Sultan Abdülhamid II, a support understood by many as complicity. The same missionary networks in the United Kingdom and the United States that had taken up abolitionism in the early nineteenth century now focused their activist energy on the Armenian massacres in the Ottoman Empire.

Instead of ushering in an era of enduring peace and partnership, the end of the Cold War was followed by a decade of turmoil, with wars in the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and Chechnya, political violence in Moscow, and controversy over the eastward expansion of NATO. The disappointments and turbulence stemmed in part from the personalities and political choices of top leaders, including the erratic and increasingly autocratic Boris Yeltsin, the skeptical and stingy responses of George H. W. Bush to the reform and collapse of the Soviet Union, and the way Bill Clinton unreservedly embraced Yeltsin while also antagonizing him by deciding to enlarge NATO and wage war against Serbia. As this chapter shows, though, American–Russian relations in the 1990s were also roiled by widely shared popular attitudes, including American triumphalist mythology about how the Cold War ended, unrealistic Russian expectations of massive US aid and respect despite Russian corruption, mismanagement, and weakness. The bright promise of the end of the Cold War was marred both by arrogant American unilateralism and by a Russian slide into depression and authoritarianism.

This chapter introduces the central puzzle driving the study: Why are Tunisian unions militant and political in their protest behavior, while their Moroccan counterparts remain apolitical and moderate? It outlines the book’s core argument, emphasizing how authoritarian policies of labor exclusion or incorporation shape unions’ interests and capacities by influencing their relationships with political elites and their internal organization. The chapter reviews the current state of research on the topic, situating the study within broader debates on labor politics, authoritarianism, and regime change. It concludes with a justification of the case selection and an overview of the empirical methods guiding the analysis.

This chapter focuses on the Democrat Party’s final years in power (1958–60), which followed a debt restructuring agreement with creditors. During these years, Democrat Party leaders attempted to implement unpopular economic policies while still holding on to power. Their main tactic was to create the “Homeland Front,” a mass political organization. Though many people joined willingly, the Democrat-led government relied on high-pressure tactics and propaganda to ensure participation. It also increased pressure on its opposition through both legislation and extralegal actions such as mobilizing mobs to attack opposition leaders. These methods were, I argue, part of a more general shift toward illiberal, less democratic norms of governance among American Cold War allies in the late 1950s. By 1960, however, the Democrat Party’s authoritarian actions had alienated important domestic groups, including academics, bureaucrats, and military officers, which led to its removal from power. Rather than explaining the origins of the May 1960 coup, this chapter reveals how hollowed out the democratic political order had become by the time military officers finally launched their operation.