Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
The Palimpsest Constitution : The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar - Melissa Crouch

The Palimpsest Constitution

The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar

By: Melissa Crouch

eText | 16 October 2025 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

eText


$155.03

or 4 interest-free payments of $38.76 with

 or 

Instant online reading in your Booktopia eTextbook Library *

Why choose an eTextbook?

Instant Access *

Purchase and read your book immediately

Read Aloud

Listen and follow along as Bookshelf reads to you

Study Tools

Built-in study tools like highlights and more

* eTextbooks are not downloadable to your eReader or an app and can be accessed via web browsers only. You must be connected to the internet and have no technical issues with your device or browser that could prevent the eTextbook from operating.

Since the mid-20th century, many postcolonial states have engaged in multiple constitution-making exercises, with the turnover in written constitutions often due to coups or internal conflict. Conversely, people have resisted authoritarian rule through alternative constitution-making. The reality that most countries have had numerous official and unofficial constitutional texts begs the question: How do past constitutions matter in the present?



This volume explores the social life of constitutional legacies, or how past constitutions matter. Using the case of Myanmar, Professor Crouch demonstrates that constitutions are a palimpsest of past texts, ideas, and practices, an accumulation of contested legacies. Through constitutional ethnography, it traces Burma/Myanmar's modern constitutional history from the late colonial era through its postcolonial, socialist, and military regimes.



The Palimpsest Constitution captures the idea that contemporary debates about constitutional reform are informed by the contested legacies of the past. In Myanmar, the military insists on the endurance of its 2008 Constitution while pro-civilian actors resist military rule through alternative constitution-making endeavours. Offering a sociological view of constitutional endurance, the book demonstrates how the social life of constitutions is central to the struggle for constitutional democracy and civilian rule in Myanmar.

on
Desktop
Tablet
Mobile

More in Constitutional & Administrative Law

Scalia : A Court of One - Bruce Allen Murphy

eBOOK

Compassionate Bastard - Peter Mitchell

eBOOK

The Making and Re-Making of Public Law - Professor Jason NE Varuhas

eBOOK

RRP $171.00

$153.99

10%
OFF