CALS Visiting Professor Andrew Harding speaks at the Inaugural Annual Oxford Programme in Asian Laws Lecture

CALS Visiting Research Professor, Andrew Harding was the lecturer at the Inaugural Annual Oxford Programme in Asian Laws Lecture organised by University of Oxford on 5 July 2024. His presentation entitled, “Territorial Governance in Southeast Asia: Pluralism and Innovation in Public Law” was based on findings in his forthcoming book, Territorial governance in Southeast Asia. The lecture was convened by Professor Bui Ngoc Son.

Abstract:

Andrew Harding’s forthcoming book, “Territorial governance in Southeast Asia“, discusses a silent revolution has taken place across Southeast Asia in the last few decades. It takes the form of disaggregation of highly centralised ‘developmental’ states, transferring powers to subnational levels of government. In the process of decentralisation these states have been compelled to resort to pluralism to deal with the extreme ethnic and religious diversity that endangers both peace and the integrity of the nation. As Ran Hirschl argues in his masterwork City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity (OUP, 2020), innovation in territorial governance is likely to come from the global South. In this lecture Andrew Harding explains the innovations, including notably special regional autonomy, that have enabled this revolution in territorial governance to take place, and the lessons to be drawn from this experience.

About the Speaker

Professor Andrew Harding is a leading scholar in the fields of Asian legal studies and comparative constitutional law. He commenced his academic career at NUS before moving to SOAS, University of London, where he became Head of the School of Law. He joined NUS from the University of Victoria, BC Canada, where he was Professor of Asia-Pacific Legal Relations and Director of the Centre for Asia-Pacific Initiatives. At NUS, he held the positions of Director of the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS), Director of the Asian Law Institute (AsLI), and Chief Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law (AJCL). His scholarly contribution has related to comparative constitutional law with reference to Southeast Asia, and Asian legal systems. He is the author or editor of 25 books and is a co-founding-editor of the Hart Publishing book series ‘Constitutional Systems of the World’. He is an alumnus of Pembroke College, Oxford, and currently, a Visiting Research Professor at CALS.