Author
Prof Melissa Crouch
Organisation/Institution
University of New South Wales, Faculty of Law & Justice
Country
AUSTRALIA
Panel
Law and Society
Title
The Military as a Legal Actor
Abstract
Studies of constitutions in authoritarian regimes reveal a new finding hiding in plain sight: that the military is often a key constitutional actor. The question of how the military uses law and constitutions to enable and facilitate its influence in constitution making and constitutional practice is under-researched. The military demands scholarly attention because of the unprecedented opportunities for the military in governance due to the rise of populism and illiberalism, the decline of democracy, the persistence of internal conflict, efforts at counterterrorism and anti-trafficking, and the COVID-19 global pandemic. In this talk I explore the role of the military as not only a political actor, but a legal actor. I look specifically at the challenges of the military within the bureaucracy. The military is an overlooked constitutional actor, and one that scholars need to pay greater attention to in order to understand the times in which we live.
Biography
Melissa Crouch is Professor at the Faculty of Law & Justice, the University of New South Wales, Sydney. She is a scholar of law and society; comparative constitutional law; and law and religion, with a focus on Indonesia and Myanmar. Her current research for her ARC Future Fellowship is on the role of the military as a constitutional actor in Asia. Her publications contribute to studies of constitutionalism in the Global South; socio-legal approaches to constitutionalism; the role of constitutions and courts in authoritarian regimes; and legal pluralism. She is the author of The Palimpsest Constitution: The Social Life of Constitutions in Myanmar (OUP, 2025) and Law and Religion in Indonesia: Conflict and the Courts in West Java (2014). She is the editor of several volumes, including Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia (OUP 2023), Women and the Judiciary in the Asia-Pacific (CUP 2021) and The Politics of Court Reform: Judicial Change and Legal Culture in Indonesia (CUP 2019). She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities. She currently serves as the Past President on the council of the Asian Studies Association of Australia (2025-26), the peak academic body for the study of Asia in Australia.
