Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review Volume 37 Number 1 Article 3 Summer 7-1-2015 Restoration Constitutionalism and Socialist Asia Bui Ngoc Son Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, Constitutional Law Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Society Commons, and the Legislation Commons Recommended Citation Bui Ngoc Son, Restoration Constitutionalism and Socialist Asia, 37 Loy. L.A. Int'l & Comp. L. Rev. 67 (2015). Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ilr/vol37/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Digital Commons @ Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons@Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. NGOC_FINAL_FOR_PUB (DO NOT DELETE) 8/23/2015 3:21 PM Restoration Constitutionalism and Socialist Asia BUI NGOC SON*• Abstract: In the course of political transformation in post- communist East Europe, many nations chose to return to the constitutional order predating the domination of communism, the phenomenon scholarly characterized as “restoration consti- tutionalism.” Recently, China and Vietnam – two socialist na- tions in Asia – have witnessed the relatively similar phenome- non: past liberal constitutional values have been employed to struggle for constitutional reform, which challenges the com- munist status quo. This phenomenon is particularly striking in Vietnam in the circle of constitutional revision in the 2010s. This paper considers discourse of restoration constitutionalism in contemporary socialist Asia with particular focus on the case of Vietnam.