The past 150 years have seen the rise and fall of many authoritarian regimes in Asia. Some have transitioned to fully democratic states while others remain as semi or fully authoritarian states with varying level of commitment to the rule of law. Yet, both types of regimes have legal systems that are considered to be legitimate.

Contemporary literature has devised a number of concepts to reconcile authoritarian rule with legal legitimacy. These include authoritarian constitutionalism, mere rule-of-law constitutionalism and electoral authoritarianism. Such concepts are, however, broad brushed and do not address the ingredients, benchmarks and limits of authoritarian legality. Most importantly, authoritarian legality needs to be understood in context. To avoid over-contextualism, however, a comparative study is necessary in order to initiate theoretical dialogue. This project undertakes such a specific and comparative study, covering Asian jurisdictions including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Vietnam. In addition, it will also include the perspective of international non-governmental organizations based on experiences of grass-root work in some of these jurisdictions.

This project aims to further the research and the literature surrounding the concept of authoritarian legality. A means of conceptualizing a regime’s legal legitimacy, authoritarian legality denotes the political and legal order that exists within an authoritarian state. In other words, the concept of authoritarian legality postulates that authoritarian regimes can have legal systems that commit to normative constitutionalism. This lies in sharp contrast to the neoliberal ideals of political liberalization and the separation of powers. Consequently, this project:

1. Examines whether such a concept of authoritarian legality is normative and genuine and not merely a haphazard pattern of authoritarian regimes manipulating the law for their own ends.
2. Examines why and how authoritarian regimes are able to commit to a certain degree of constitutionalism.
3. Examines the practical limit of authoritarian legality.
4. Examines the replicability of authoritarian legality.
5. Examines the aftereffects of an authoritarian state’s transition to democracy.