Conclusion

This conclusion summarizes trends and major points in socialist constitutional change, and addresses broader implications. The socialist constitutions’ history or progress indicates the trend to incremental adaption of core socialist constitutional institutions. In some case, socialist constitutional change leads to partial adoption of some institutions of liberal democracy and market economy. But, the resistance to institutions of liberal constitutional democracy is also vehement in several cases. In addition, the divergence between socialist and liberal political and economic institutions is increasingly sharp. This institutional divergence is mainly due to socialist and local constitutional innovation. The partial adaption, resistance, and local innovation suggest that socialist constitutional change has not converged with “the end of history.” The socialist constitutions are increasingly dissonant documents, which is the condition for continuing evolution of the socialist constitutional order. Socialist constitutional change is connected to the broader global constitutional landscape. Constitutional change to improve the material wellbeing of living conditions is a part of human development.