overall Asian results for the power indices, with more extreme numbers for both
parliamentary and executive power. On the other hand, the rights features tend to
look similar to other countries, except for the area of criminal procedure.
iii. conclusion
Clearly the formal patterns of constitutions in Asia do not reflect the conventional
Asian Values argument, at least in its simplest version. The overall level of rights in
Asian constitutions seems to generally fit the global convergence story. There is,
however, one exception: the area of criminal-procedure rights.^41 Asian countries are
less likely to protect criminal defendants through the constitution than are coun-
tries in other regions. Whether this reflects deeply rooted cultural attitudes toward
crime is beyond the scope of this chapter to evaluate. But it is an interesting and
heretofore relatively unremarked-upon feature that distinguishes the region.
In terms of the power structure of political institutions we find less evidence for
overall convergence. Constitutional systems around the world exhibit a good
deal of variation in formal powers granted to the executive or to the legislature.
What Chen calls the liberal-democratic and hybrid models are general types that
may be found in many regions. While the liberal-democratic and hybrid models in
Asia tend to be similar to those in other regions, we showed that Asia is distinctive
because of the existence of Leninist countries that continue to maintain the
tradition of parliamentary sovereignty. This drives the overall regional pattern of
higher levels of parliamentary power, as well as lower levels of executive power,
than in other regions. To the extent that one is willing to draw conclusions about an
overall regional Asian pattern, the distinctive features seem to flow from the
socialist constitutions.
To conclude, it is worth remembering the limits of the present analysis, which is
only drawn from formal provisions of constitutions and does not touch on their
actual functioning. Yet formal texts are likely to be significant repositories of
national values, precisely because of their symbolic nature. To the extent that the
proponents of Asian Values are articulating a position that Asian publics have
different preferences about the nature of government, these should be manifest
in expressive documents like constitutions.
(^41) For the convergence story, see Law and Versteeg,Sham Constitutions.