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The purpose of the symposium on pluralizing constitutional interpretation was to reflect upon the multiple sites at which interpretative activities take place, their real-world significance, and the methodological implications of expanding our scholarly lens beyond court rulings and beyond legal materials for a more complete understanding of how constitutions are engaged with. In this introductory article, we propose at least three directions for diversification. The first is the pluralization of actors beyond the courts, attention being drawn to the diverse range of institutions, entities, and individuals involved in giving meaning to the constitution. The second is methodological and disciplinary in nature; it addresses the manner in which this plurality of interpreters relates to nonlegal methods and sources, as compared to classic legal methods and sources. The third is about orientation and entails a shift from the study of doctrines, precedents, and conceptional analysis to a more dynamic approach to interpretation, as defined by intersecting viewpoints, coinciding sites of interpretation, and a shifting of institutional and disciplinary boundaries. Taken together, these directions hold out the promise of arriving at a more complete understanding of how constitutional law is engaged with as a lived reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article makes the case for adopting a genuinely pluralist perspective when studying constitutional interpretation and sets out the principal forms such inquiries can take. While it has now been accepted that the court-centricity that characterized much of the earlier work on constitutional interpretation must be recalibrated, the approach taken in much constitutional scholarship remains underinclusive, as the role of executives, agencies, ad hoc commissions, and social actors in constructing the meaning of the constitutional text is often downplayed, or altogether overlooked. We argue that a pluralist perspective is necessary to fully appreciate the practice of constitutionalism in each jurisdiction and enable more informed analyses of the relationship between constitutions and law-making. Through a series of case studies, we further demonstrate that, while nonjudicial interpretation is an important practice in all countries, such a perspective could be particularly apposite in dominant-party states, as well as those favoring political constitutionalism, where courts are unlikely to position themselves as the principal, let alone exclusive, authority on what the constitution means. This article also explores the methodological implications in designing pluralistic constitutional interpretation studies, focusing on the questions that await investigation, the core variables at play, and the particular hazards in collating and assessing the materials that must be reckoned with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the assumptions that undergirds, sometimes implicitly, much of the contemporary push for participatory constitution-making is that meaningful popular involvement is easier to achieve in units with fewer inhabitants. This article critically interrogates that view, using the experience of small states (understood as those with no more than 1.5 million inhabitants) during constitution-making processes. It suggests that population size is not always a decisive or even significant variable when it comes to the type and quality of popular input realized during constitution-making in small states. Instead, five other macrocultural and environmental variables that, either alone or together, may have a greater impact are identified: democratic history and elite stewardship; the enduring presence of traditional orderings of society and approaches to governance; the ethnic and religious make-up of society; the available human capital and state of economic development; and physical geography. Drawing on case studies from the Asia-Pacific region, we show how these variables play out and highlight the need for contextual assessments of participatory constitution-making, also within the small state universe, to avoid falling into the "usual suspect" trap that has long plagued work in comparative constitutional law generally. This article further suggests that the relevance of the five variables mentioned does not appear to be peculiar to small states, which means that these variables can similarly be profitably used in studies of participatory processes generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This issue features a curated set of contextualized case studies that interrogate how six Asian countries have calibrated global imperatives with domestic desires and concerns during the drafting of their latest constitution. Read together, the accounts demonstrate that the impact of globalization on what has long been thought of as a quintessential exercise of national sovereignty is ubiquitous, yet that the precise combination of the global and the local is unique to each country, determined as it is by the strength of domestic interests and factions. Taking contextualized functionalism as its premise, this introduction sketches the contours of an analytical framework to study constitution-making processes in a globalized environment. By implication, this framework is conceived in a neutral fashion and cast in functional terminology that extrapolates from the circumstances of the countries featured in this issue. This, we hope, will make it a helpful toolbox to make sense of the global-local interplay in constitution-making in any country, whether located in Asia or further afield. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]