1Introduction—The Legal Complex in Struggles for Political Liberalism

Fights for political liberalism are not dead. Nations that have never sought or accomplished a liberal political society are constrained or inspired to do so by international financial and governance institu-tions, international NGOs, and geopolitically influential states (Elster, Offe and Preuss, 1998). Nations that have advanced towards and then retreated from political liberalism are pressed to regain lost ground (Miller, 2003; Schmitter, 1995). Nations that have recently shifted from authoritarian to liberal political systems are encouraged to lock in the transition through institutions and constitutions (Ackerman, 1999; Ahdieh, 1997; Ahn, 1998; Gross, 2004). And nations that seemed to be mature democracies are being encouraged to recover diminished freedoms in the face of terrorism and domestic conflict. Across the world political liberalism is being fought for, consolidated and defended. In reaction to formerly one-party or developmental states (eg, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea), ‘Big Man ’ authoritarian regimes (eg, Kenya), former and current communist regimes in central and eastern Europe and Asia (eg, China), and former military dictatorships in Lati