Of comparative constitutional monocropping: A reply to Qianfan Zhang

摘要

It is generally forgotten that the modern Western tradition of constitutionalism, was originally highly variegated. By the late eighteenth century, three distinctive strands of constitutional thought had emerged: a political strand, associated with English constitutionalism; a legalist strand, associated with the American constitutional document drafted in 178 7; and a democratic-statist strand associated with postrevolutionary France. Throughout the nineteenth century, these strands would continually interact with and inform one another, and it would be through their mutual interaction that the idea of constitutionalism would gain its intercivilizational appeal.