BOOK: Tom GINSBURG, Benjamin SCHONTAL (eds.), Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law [Comparative Constitutional Law and Policy] (Cambridge: CUP, 2022), xx + 406pp, ISBN 9781009286022 [OPEN ACCESS]

Abstract

Buddhism and Comparative Constitutional Law offers the first comprehensive account of the entanglements of Buddhism and constitutional law in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tibet, Bhutan, China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Bringing together an interdisciplinary team of experts, the volume offers a complex portrait of “the Buddhist-constitutional complex,” demonstrating the intricate and powerful ways in which Buddhist and constitutional ideas merged, interacted and co-evolved. The authors also highlight the important ways in which Buddhist actors have (re)conceived Western liberal ideals such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and secularism. Available Open Access on Cambridge Core, this trans-disciplinary volume is written to be accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Contents

1. Introduction: Mapping the Buddhist–Constitutional Complex in Asia (Tom Ginsburg and Benjamin Schonthal)
2. Buddhism and Constitutionalism in Precolonial Southeast Asia (D. Christian Lammerts)
3. Theorising Constitutionalism in Buddhist-Dominant Asian Polities (Asanga Welikala)
4. The Zhabdrung’s Legacy: Buddhism and Constitutional Transformation in Bhutan (Richard W. Whitecross)
5. The “Trick of Law”: The Hermeneutics of Early Buddhist Law in Tibet (Martin A. Mills)
6. Tibetan Buddhist Monastic Constitutional Law and Governmental Constitutional Law: Mutual Influences? (Berthe Jansen)
7. Guardians of the Law: Sinhala Language and Buddhist Reformation in Postwar Sri Lanka (Krishantha Fedricks)
8. Thai Constitutions as a Battle Ground for Political Authority: Barami versus Vox Populi (Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang)
9. Establishing the King as the Source of the Constitution: Shifting ‘Bricolaged’ Narratives of Buddhist Kingship from Siam to Thailand (Eugénie Mérieau)
10. Buddhist Constitutionalism beyond Constitutional Law: Buddhist Statecraft and Military Ideology in Myanmar (Iselin Frydenlund)
11. Reconstituting the Divided Sangha: Buddhist Authority in Post-Conflict Cambodia (Benjamin Lawrence)
12. Constitutional Buddhism: Japanese Buddhists and Constitutional Law (Levi McLaughlin)
13. Governing Buddhism in Vietnam (Ngoc Son Bui)
14. The Buddhist Association of China and Constitutional Law in Buddhist Majority Nations: The International Channels of Influence (André Laliberté)
15. Governing “Lamaism” on the “Frontier”: Buddhism and Law in Early Twentieth-Century Inner Mongolia (Daigengna Duoer)
16. Buddhist Constitutional Battlegrounds: Using the Courts to Litigate Monastic Celibacy in South Korea (1955–1970) (Mark A. Nathan)
17. On the Familiar Pleasures of Estrangement (Deepa Das Acevedo)
18. Buddhism and Constitutionalism: A Comparison with the Canon Law (Richard H. Helmholz)
19. Islam and Constitutional Law: Insights for the Emerging Field of Buddhist Constitutional Law (Clark B. Lombardi)

Book available in open access at CUP website.