Believe in the Ideal, Not the Idol: Constitutional Literacy and Constitutional Idolatry in Taiwan

Abstract

Conventional wisdom has long held that constitutional literacy helps stabilize constitutional democracy. Nonetheless, the case of Taiwan and its constitution not only challenges this idea but also suggests that constitutional literacy itself may threaten constitutional democracy. Moreover, constitutional literacy could easily devolve into constitutional idolatry, if constitutional literacy is predicated on anachronistic and undemocratic constitutional provisions. This is exactly the case in Taiwan, where constitutional idolatry is interwoven with political ideology: the more pro-unification a Taiwanese person is, the more likely the individual will be to embrace constitutional idolatry. Therefore, we should distinguish between constitutional literacy as it concerns constitutional practices and constitutional literacy as it concerns written constitutions.