Po Jen Yap is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong, where he specialises in Constitutional and Administrative Law.

Rehan Abeyratne is an Associate Professor of Law at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he specialises in constitutional law and comparative constitutionalism.

Contributors

1 Parliaments in Asia: Introduction

Po Jen Yap and Rehan Abeyratne

PART I

Thematic Chapters

2 Communist regimes

Po Jen Yap and Chen Yu-Jie

3 Liberal democracies

Chien-Chih Lin

4 Dominant party democracies

Po Jen Yap and Marcus Teo

5 Turbulent democracies

Rehan Abeyratne

6 Presidential democracies

Björn Dressel and Fakhridho Susilo

PART II

Jurisdiction Chapters

7 The Parliament ( Jatiya Sangsad) of Bangladesh

M Jashim Ali Chowdhury

8 The National Assembly and Senate of the Kingdom of Cambodia

Benjamin Lawrence

9 The National People's Congress in China

Sun Ying

10 The Legislative Council of Hong Kong

Eric Chan

11 The Parliament and State Legislatures of India

M Mohsin Alam Bhat

12 The Legislatures of Indonesia

Simon Butt and Tim Lindsey

13 The Japanese Diet

Shigenori Matsui

14 The Parliament of Malaysia

Wong Chin Huat

15 The Legislature (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw) of Myanmar

Richard Roewer and Han Htoo Khant Paing

16 The Parliament of Pakistan

Mariam Mufti

17 The Congress of the Philippines

Bryan Dennis G Tiojanco and Ronald Ray K San Juan

18 The Parliament of Singapore

Eugene KB Tan

19 The National Assembly of the Republic of Korea

Sang-Un Park

20 The Parliament of Sri Lanka

Dinesha Samararatne

21 The Legislative Yuan of Taiwan

Yen-Tu Su

22 The Legislative Assembly of Thailand

Khemthong Tonsakulrungruang and Aua-aree Engchanil

23 The National Assembly of Vietnam

Ngoc Son Bui

Index

This handbook showcases the rich varieties of legislatures that exist in Asia and explains how political power is constituted in 17 jurisdictions in East, Southeast and South Asia.
Legislatures in Asia come in all stripes. Liberal democracies co-exist cheek by jowl with autocracies; semi-democratic and competitive authoritarian systems abound. While all legislatures exist to make law and confer legitimacy on the political leadership, how representative they are of the people they govern differs dramatically across the continent, such that it is impossible to identify a common Asian prototype. Divided into thematic and country-by-country sections, this handbook is a one-stop reference that surveys the range of political systems operating in Asia. Each jurisdiction chapter examines the structure and composition of its legislature, the powers of the legislature, the legislative process, thereby providing a clear picture of how each legislature operates both in theory and in practice. The book also thematically analyses the following political systems operating in Asia: communist regimes, liberal democracies, dominant party democracies, turbulent democracies, presidential democracies, military regimes and protean authoritarian rule.
This handbook is a vital and comprehensive resource for scholars of constitutional law and politics in Asia.