Conventional wisdom holds that all constitutions, once enacted, change. Constitutional change includes alteration, revision, evolution, interpretation, replacement, revolution, and amendment. It is also perceived that constitutional change either boosts the efficacy or orchestrates the erosion of democracies. This perception invites the study of comparative constitutional change (CCC), which is “a novel field of study” of how, when, why, and by whom constitutions change.Footnote 1 Initial efforts in the study of CCC began in the 1990s, although the CCC literature only emerged in the 2010s and has focused mostly on democracies and the European experience.
Surviving the third wave of democratization in the late 1980s and 1990s, China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam—the world's five remaining communist party–ruled socialist countries as proclaimed in their constitutions, except for Laos—have also had their constitutions changed. Between 1991 and 2019, constitutional change took place three times in Vietnam, two times in Laos, three times in Cuba, four times in China, and eight times in North Korea. However, rather less scholarly attention has been paid to the study of constitutional change in these socialist countries, creating a gap in the comparative constitutional inquiry into this “socialist world.”
As in any constitution-founded state around the globe, the constitution is considered the mother of all laws in these five socialist countries. Furthermore, over the past three decades, they not only have survived economic crises but have emerged to become the world's second-largest economy in the case of China, the fastest-growing economy in Southeast Asia in the case of Vietnam, an emerging developing economy in the cases of Laos and Cuba, and a more resilient economy in the case of North Korea.
The development and crisis resilience myth of these countries, indeed, has prompted constitutional law and political science scholars to ask questions relating to constitutional change in these countries. Why did they change their constitutions? What factors drove their constitutional change? How did they change their constitutions? What process did they engage in to change the constitution? What model did the constitutional change in these countries offer? What change did the revised, amended, or new constitution bring to these countries? Would they continue to change their constitution in the future?
Bui Ngoc Son's Constitutional Change in the Contemporary Socialist World is the first monograph to bring together and discuss constitutional change in these five socialist countries in a single volume, but it also offers answers to the foregoing questions. It fills in the literature gap and will certainly lay the foundation for any future studies of constitutional change in these countries. Three audiences will find this book interesting. First, it will appeal to those interested in constitutional law, CCC, and the theory of constitutional change. Second, it will attract students of political science wanting to understand how political institutions operate in authoritarian regimes. Third, it particularly engages scholars of these five socialist countries.
Excluding the introduction and conclusion, the book is purposefully divided into two main parts. The first part, consisting of three chapters, canvasses the four existing approaches to theorizing the models of comparative constitutional change. These approaches are conceptualism, functionalism, causalism, and institutionalism. As Son briefly explains (p. 13), conceptualist accounts explore foundational concepts including constitutions and constitutional change; functionalists look at the role of constitutional change in addressing the social and political issues in a specific political environment; causalist accounts discuss the determinants of constitutional change; and institutionalists look into the legal aspects that govern the way that constitutional change occurs, particularly the legal form of constitutional change.
What Son draws from the argument analyzing the CCC theorizing models is that theorizing socialist constitutional change requires a holistic approach because “constitutional change is multi-dimensional, and therefore cannot be fully understood by using a single viewpoint to conceptualize it” (p. 13). Chapters 2 and 3 trace the identity and history of socialist constitutions and discuss their implications for comparative constitutional studies, laying the analytic framework for the second part of the book focusing on case studies.
Part two of the book consists of five chapters, each of which provides an in-depth analysis of the constitutional change model in a specific socialist jurisdiction. These case studies are aimed not only at introducing a general theory about constitutional stability and instability but also at studying socialist constitutions to help us understand the causes and dynamics of constitutional change from a broader perspective in the “socialist world.” Through the analysis, Son insightfully draws out a model for each of the five socialist countries. It is “universal” in Vietnam (chapter 4, pp. 141–208); “integration” in Laos (chapter 5, pp. 209–43); “reservation” in Cuba (chapter 6, pp. 244–75); “exceptional” in China (chapter 7, pp. 276–318); and “personal” in North Korea (chapter 8, pp. 319–40). Regardless of the model that these countries have been pursuing, Son argues that “socialist constitutional change leads to partial adoption of some institutions of liberal democracy and market economy” (p. 342). However, Son concludes that “the prevailing ‘end’ of socialist constitutional change is to improve the living condition of residents ensured by economic development and enabling institutions rather than to protect liberal rights by constitutional constraints” (p. 342).
The book has room for improvement. In terms of methodology, Son emphasizes that this book is “a comparative enterprise.” The field of CCC requires the use of various methodological tools to study and reveal different perceptions of a constitution as well as the approaches through which constitutions change. Hence, it would be more comprehensive if the book elaborated more on other methodological aspects and explanation of qualitative approaches such as changing time, vertical and horizontal comparison including combining cross-time and cross-country analysis, and the challenges of collecting data, especially in a closed country like North Korea. Another missing piece is a chapter on a comparative analysis drawn from the five socialist constitutional change case studies. The final, but minor, flaw is the inconsistency of the analytic structure of the five case study chapters.
With its emphasis on emerging and cutting-edge debates in the study of comparative constitutional law and politics, despite these suggestions for improvement, the book is a perfect assembler to fill in the existing literature gap on the study of the constitutional change in the “socialist world.” It is strongly recommended for both research and teaching use, as well as for CCC scholars and students of the concerned socialist countries.
