Growing Pains. "Asia-Pacific Constitutional Systems" by Graham Hassall and Cheryl Saunders. [review]

Abstract

A comprehensive comparative survey of the post-colonial constitutions established in Asia and the Pacific after World War II, and their subsequent evolution, is an ambitious undertaking, and perhaps an anomalous one, since it may be only from the viewpoint of Australia's involvement in 'the region' that such diverse societies, across such a vast area, could be thought of as a single region. The one clear common problem is that of reconciling indigenous traditions with political philosophies and institutions transplanted during the colonial era, and generally retained thereafter. Beyond that, both the indigenous and the imported traditions are too diverse for easy generalisation.