Constitution Amending: Responding To The Changes Of Policies And Driving Institutional Transition

From the perspective of state-society relationship theory, this paper explores the main causes that lead to the establishment of 1982 Chinese constitution and its amendments, as well as their impacts on Chinese political system. Based on theoretical analysis and evidences from reality, the author achieved three basic conclusions. Firstly, although the direct cause responsible for amending Chinese constitution is the policy change of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the constitutional protection for the individual economic activities led to the re-allotting of the property right between the state and the society, and bred two great changes of the relationship of state-society: the shrinkage of the control areas of the state over the society and the enhancement of economic constraints of the society on the state. Secondly, over-emphasis on the economic development led to the absence of constitutional constraints of economic activities which brought many social and political problems and forced the CCP to make new amendments of the Chinese constitution. Finally, progresses reflected in certain articles of the Chinese constitution will generate more contractual constraints on the CCP and the state, and as the promisee, whether and to what extents the CCP will put these new articles into effect are becoming a big challenge of its legitimacy.