On the Asian and European Origins of Legal and Political Systems

Tai-uk Chung, Pierre Chabal, Zhuldyz Sairambaeva

This book analyses the legal and political systems of three different regions of the Asian/Eurasian continent. More precisely it compares the origins of such systems as both the ancient foundations inherited from the past and the founding principles of modern systems today. It suggests that the European constructions, the East-Asian dynamics and the Centralasian transitions, often studied separately or at best in a comparison of only two of them, ought to be approached as three variations on a theme. The value for the readers and the challenge for the authors is to situate these origins within both legal norms and traditions, whether Latin or Asian, as well as within modern Anglo-Saxon common-law dimensions and remnants of the Soviet system.