Sumário:Theoretical reflections: People vs. imposition. The'unbearable lightness' of the 'people'. Unmasterable past. Shifting boundaries -- Overbearing externality: 'A farewell to arms': negotiating the imposition of Japan's 'peace provision'. 'A tale of two cities': (Un)making the economic constitution in South Korea -- Unmasterable past: 'Close encounters of the third kind': Symbolic emperor polity in postwar Japan. 'The king and I': A democratic republic beyond colonial and dynastic subjugation -- Shifting boundaries:'Six degrees of separation': From multiethnic empire to monoethnic nation-state. 'A room of one's own': Constituting a South Korea people.