Nomos and Diverging Narratives: Reflectiing on the Constitutional Experience of the Early Republic of China

The constitutional experience of the early ROC is characterized by divergence, discontinuities, as well as attempts at renewal. To understand the relationship between narrative and constitutional norms during this period, it is necessary to distinguish “constitutive epics” that address the legitimacy of the whole constitutional order, and the narrative on a lower level focusing on how the legal force of constitutional norms is extended in time. Discontinuities and attempts at renewal during this period also highlight the significance of the temporal dimension, since to renew a suspended constitutional order requires retrospective legal interpretation to build the continuity between the past, the present, and the future. Ultimately, the diverging of narratives in the early ROC derived from the split of the interpretive community. From this perspective, the Nationalist Revolution and the Communist Revolution starting from the 1920s can be understood as attempts to build a more homogeneous interpretive community.