| In the tenets of Western political science, "limited government" is usually seen as the touchstone of modern constitutionalism. However, significant issues can arise when one applies this framework to East Asia. By studying the origin of constitutionalism in China and Japan, my dissertation reexamines the idea that "limited government" is the core of modern constitutionalism. I argue that constitutionalism, as it was introduced in Meiji Japan and late Qing China, focused on strengthening the government rather than limiting it. Contrary to the popular belief that an affinity for authoritarianism resulted from cultural predispositions of the Chinese mind, this dissertation argues that Chinese constitutionalism's desire to strengthen the state was consciously adopted and constructed in response to the realities of late 19th and early 20th century China.;This dissertation cautions against a reductive view of Chinese reception of constitutionalism as a distortion of its Western counterparts. By studying the constitutional thought of Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavelli, Hobbes, the early English constitutionalists, Locke, Montesquieu, the American founding fathers, and others. I call attention to a similar tendency in the West to search for a balance between the need for a strong state and the principles of a Republic (or/and the later liberal emphasis on "limited government"). My argument calls for a reevaluation not only of Chinese constitutional thought, but also of the current liberal constitutional theory that defines the goal of constitutionalism principally as limiting governmental power. My research shows that what is essential to all constitutionalism, be it in the East or the West, is to maintain a delicate balance between limited government and a strong state. |
