COMPARATIVE POLITICAL PROCESS THEORY AS A DEVELOPMENTAL STRATEGY
ABSTRACT
A few years ago Andrew Harding asked a fundamental question that this talk aims to address: is constitutionalism and development a mismatch or a dream-team? In other words, can constitutionalism assist development, and vice versa? I join Harding in answering yes to both questions, and support his conclusion that “[t]he solution of the riddle of development and constitutionalism … lies in the empowerment of communities and individuals” with an argument from a constitutional ethnography of Philippine democracy. Presently the Philippine Supreme Court treats people empowerment as a political issue. Against this I argue—based on the text, structure, and history of the Philippine Constitution—that in the Philippines people empowerment is a justiciable constitutional issue. I further make a functional argument: there is evidence from several Philippine case studies that constitutionally enforcing people empowerment boosts development, and would therefore promote what Harding calls the developmental operativity of constitutionalism in the Philippines. I then draw on the set of judicial remedies and reliefs—in particular engagement-style remedies—collated and justified by the new comparative political process theory (CPPT) to suggest how people empowerment in the Philippines can be judicially enforced.
SPEAKER
Bryan Dennis Tiojanco
Project Associate Professor
The University of Tokyo Bryan Dennis Gabito Tiojanco is a project associate professor at the University of Tokyo, where he teaches ‘transnational law and political economy’ and ‘law and the formation of transnational East Asia’. He holds JSD and LLM degrees from Yale Law School, and a JD from the University of the Philippines. He publishes on Philippine constitutional law, history, and theory, and on comparative constitutional law theory. His works aim to promote a republican model of participatory democracy as an alternative to the presently predominant liberal model of elite democracy.
COMMENTATOR 
Andrew Harding
Professor of Law
University of Reading Malaysia
Professor Andrew Harding is a leading scholar in the fields of Asian legal studies and comparative constitutional law. At NUS he held the positions of Director of the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, Director of the Asian Law Institute, and Chief Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law. Professor Harding has worked extensively on constitutional law in Malaysia and Thailand, and has made extensive contributions to scholarship in comparative law, and law and development, having published more than 20 books as author or editor. He is co-founding-editor of Hart Publishing's book series ‘Constitutional Systems of the World’, a major resource for contextual analysis of constitutional systems, and has authored the books on Malaysia and Thailand in that series (2011, 2012, 2021). He is currently working on territorial governance in Southeast Asia.
CHAIR
Maartje De Visser
Associate Professor of Law
Singapore Management University
Maartje De Visser focuses her research on constitutional engagement by courts and non-judicial actors, while she also has an abiding interest in comparative methodology. She has published widely on these topics, with her work appearing in leading peer-reviewed journals including the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Global Constitutionalism, the American Journal of Comparative Law, and the Asian Journal of Law and Society. She has co-edited six books and contributed chapters to more than 25 edited volumes. Maartje is the recipient of five Lee Kong Chian Fellowships for research excellence, and a member of the editorial board of the Hart Studies in Constitutional Theory Series as well as of the European Yearbook of Constitutional Law. She is the founding co-chair of the Singapore Chapter of ICON-S.
DETAILS
Date: 27 September 2023, Wednesday
Time: 2pm to 3pm
Venue: Meeting Room 5-04, Level 5, Yong Pung How School of Law, SMU
REGISTRATIONPlease click HERE to register.
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