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What explains divergences in political liberalism among new nations that shared the same colonial heritage? This book assembles exciting original essays on former colonies of the British Empire in South Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia that gained independence after World War II. The interdisciplinary country specialists reveal how inherent contradictions within British colonial rule were resolved after independence in contrasting liberal-legal, despotic and volatile political orders. Through studies of the longue durée and particular events, this book presents a theory of political liberalism in the post-colony and develops rich hypotheses on the conditions under which the legal complex, civil society and the state shape alternative postcolonial trajectories around political freedom. This provocative volume presents new perspectives for scholars and students of postcolonialism, political development and the politics of the legal complex, as well as for policy makers and publics who struggle to construct and defend basic legal freedoms. Table of Contents Part I. Liberal-Legal Orders 1. Emasculating the executive: the federal court and civil liberties in late colonial India: 1942–4 2. The legal complex in the struggle to control police brutality in India 3. Priests in the temple of justice: the Indian legal complex and the basic structure doctrine Part II. Despotic Orders 4. Lawyers, politics and publics: state management of lawyers and legitimacy in Singapore 5. Lawyers and the disintegration of the legal complex in Sudan 6. The Sri Lankan legal complex and the liberal project: only thus far and no more Part III. Volatile Orders 7. 'Custodian of civil liberties and justice in Malaysia': the Malaysian bar and the moderate state 8. Liberal protagonists? The lawyers' movement in Pakistan 9. Miscarriage of chief justice: judicial power and the legal complex in Pakistan under Musharraf 10. From judicial autonomy to regime transformation: the role of the lawyers' movement in Pakistan 11. Postcolonial liberalism and the legal complex in Zambia: elegy or triumph? 12. Legal complexes and the fight for political liberalism in new African democracies: comparative insights from Malawi, Zambia and Namibia 13. Judge and company: courts, constitutionalism and the legal complex