ABSTRACT
Confucianism is associated with authoritarianism, collectivism, hierarchical role-based order, over-emphasis on obligation. There are three main approaches on the issue of Confucian Constitutionalism in contemporary academia, namely the institutional approach, the ritualistic approach, and the religious approach. The institutional approach does not challenge the conceptual framework of the liberal constitutional paradigm and instead seeks to demonstrate that the institutions of a Confucian polity actually have mechanisms of checks and balances. The ritualistic approach is perhaps the most fully explored among the three approaches covered in this chapter, and here the author mainly reviews the arguments defending the Confucian Li's constitutional nature as well as its advantages. The teleology of entrenching the natural justice behind the Confucian Li in fact bridges the Confucian Religious Constitutionalism to the religious approach towards the study of Traditional Confucian Constitutionalism as well. To sum up, in this chapter the author has reviewed different approaches toward the issue of Confucian constitutionalism.
