Vietnamese Constitutional Debate in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

The young and dynamic discipline of comparative constitutional law has been dominated by juricentrism. Scholars have concentrated their energy on exploring the impact of court structures and judicial decisions on constitutional law. While these endeavours are meaningful in their own right, one of the consequences is the neglect or marginalization of many other substantive constitutional issues, including the issue of constitutional debate. Even the recent scholarship on constitutional dialogue has focused on the institutional dialogue between courts and other political institutions. This special issue attempts to contribute to the breadth and depth of the comparative constitutional law scholarship in Asia and beyond by focusing on the national constitutional debates among different social and institutional actors in Vietnam. This brief Introduction locates Vietnamese constitutional debate within a comparative context and discusses how this story can inform comparative constitutional inquiry.