Constitutions, crisis, and regime change: Perspectives on East and Southeast Asia

What happens to liberal democratic constitutions during a severe financial crisis? How does such an event affect their nature, their practice, and their enforcement, particularly where such constitutions are relatively new? In this chapter, I seek answers to these questions through empirical analysis of the experience of the states in Southeast and East Asia over the last quarter century (1990–2013), eliciting both quantitative and well-rooted qualitative evidence. Though highly challenging, Asia is particularly suitable terrain for this kind of empirical exploration. While the political and constitutional diversity of the region make broad generalization problematic – many states in the region are so far from the normative liberal-constitutional ideal they might best be described as hybridnominal constitutional orders1 – it is also true that the severe impact of the Asian financial crisis (AFC, 1997–98) and to a lesser degree the recent global financial crisis (GFC, 2008–09), has provided a unique opportunity to explore the nexus between liberal constitutional practice and financial crisis – and to test the claim that ‘constitutionalism has significantly broadened and deepened its reach in Asia in modern and contemporary times