THE EVOLUTION OF CONSTITUTIONAL FORMS OF GOVERNMENT, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ASIAN COUNTRIES CONSIDERED IN THE LIGHT OF THE EXPERIENCE OF THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES GENERALLY (EAST ASIA, LATIN AMERICA, DIFFRACTION)

This dissertation analyzes constitutionalism in six selected countries of East Asia and Latin America that have experienced coup d'etat or military governments during their development, using the United States of America in its "era of establishment" as a model. The analysis has utilized the template or ideograph of society suggested by Fred Warren Riggs in his Theory of Prismatic Society, in order to compare the several selected countries. Our focus has been upon the elements that exist within the society and that state's policies militating for effective constitutionalism, or leading another way. The research methods involved intensive historical analysis of the selected countries, from Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America which have adhered to an American Constitutional format. Some of the materials were collected during intensive research, writing, and teaching in Asia. Much of the statistical data has been collected from recognized sources of such country data to build the data base for computer-run multiple regression analyses. The results show that there is a wide range in the degree of "diffraction" among our selected countries. The Asian states have particular problems in the development process, and are still deeply involved in the "prismatic" phase, though significant progress has been made among our selected states. Scatter-diagramming analyses places each of these six states among a total of twenty states to view them in a world perspective. Our conclusions are founded upon matrix analysis, scatter-diagram analysis and multiple regression analysis to relate each of our selected states to each other and to a total of twenty states' data. These concluding analyses suggest what each of our given states needs to do in terms of policy changes to strengthen their potentialities for further evolution toward a successful liberal-democratic constitutionalism.