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Civil Society in Self-Defense 199 C H A P T E R E I G H T Civil Society in Self-Defense THIS CHAPTER TRIES TO SOLVE the puzzle laid out in the introductory section of Part C, namely why the vibrant civil society in Hong Kong has not been able to bring about democracy. An obvious explanation is of course the China factor; that the power imbalance between the party-state of the PRC and Hong Kong civil society was too great to overcome, that facing the omnipotent Chinese partystate , the civil society in Hong Kong was not strong enough to effect political change. Chapter Seven also provided part of the explanation: the civil society in Hong Kong was always under encroachment and had a dual structure, disabling the CSOs from coalescing into a formidable political force to effect reforms. This chapter analyzes the constraints of the liberal CSOs and the social movement in Hong Kong, by discussing the historical evolution of social movements, the pattern of organization of CSOs, and the relationship of CSOs with other institutional actors. Kamrava and O’Mora (1998) claimed that for civil society to play an important role in democratization, civil society organizations must operate democratically, must complement their issue-related demands with demands for political democracy, and need to gain sufficient power by horizontal linkages between CSOs. An analysis of the CSOs in Hong Kong in recent years showed that they were generally weak in horizontal linkage, with many detached or distancing themselves from the larger political movement for various reasons, and were weak in resources. The experiences of CSOs in Hong Kong after 1997 showed that they were relatively successful in defending against the encroachment from the state, but did not have enough solidarity or organization to push for progressive social or political reforms. The rise of the “new social movements” and the ad hoc united fronts as the dominant form of organization of social movements in Hong Kong made it easier for CSOs to stage resistance movements or sporadic protest actions, but they were generally not strong enough to force more fundamental social and political institutional changes. The experience of 200 Political Development in Hong Kong the Civil Human Rights Front in the struggle against Article 23 and its role in the subsequent democracy movement showed the limitations of the new stage of movement and its movement form. The coming of the social movement industry As discussed in Chapter One, the dominant paradigm for Hong Kong studies mostly took the colonial state as autonomous from societal influence. The influential works of Lau (1984) and King (1975) took political stability amidst rapid industrialization and the absence of challenges to colonial rule as their starting point, as the major “anomaly” that they sought to explain. Both Images I and II of the colonial state discussed in Chapter One saw civil society as weak or even non-existent, with government policies during the early colonial era largely the result of choices of autonomous state actors. As Chiu and Hung (1999) pointed out, these early sociologists had a “high threshold of instability”; any collective action that fell short of fundamentally challenging colonial rule would be seen as insignificant. Focused on explaining social and political stability, these scholars overlooked the diverse forms of grassroots protests and resistance movements (Lui and Chiu, 2000, pp. 5–6). More detailed studies of postwar Hong Kong revealed that there were significant social and political movements from society, with China, the colonial government or private institutions as the prime targets (Lam, 2004, pp. 53–64). These movements varied in terms of scale, publicity, and intensity. They included movements seeking change in government policies (e.g., campaign against rent control, campaign to change marriage laws), industrial action (e.g., tram workers’ strike), outbursts of violence with political and nationalist underpinnings (e.g., the 1956 and 1967 riots), and campaigns against private corporations (e.g., against rise of telephone tariffs). Lam (2004, p. 59) counted 212 and 137 events of political action in the decades 1949–59 and 1960–69 respectively, a not insignificant figure even if compared with those of the 1970s and beyond. Studies on postwar rural stability showed that the colonial government actively managed its relationship with the rural leaders through the Heung Yee Kuk (Chiu and Hung, 1997 & 1999). Industrial conflicts were far from absent, although the trade union movement had only a marginal influence at the workplace, industry and society levels (Lui and Chiu, 2000, p. 6...

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