Political Development in Hong Kong: State, Political Society, and Civil Society

PART B - Political Society and Political Development

Political Society and Political Development 93 P A R T B Political Society and Political Development 94 Political Development in Hong Kong PART B OF THIS BOOK discusses the development of the political society in Hong Kong, with emphasis on the changes and development after 1997. Stepan (1988, p. 4) defined political society in a democratizing setting as “the arena in which the polity arranges itself for political contestation to gain control over public power and the state apparatus.” Weigle saw the political society as both a part of civil society and a part of the state. It includes that part of civil society that attempts to influence state power through political organizations (e.g., voters’ associations, political parties), those institutions in which political organizations vie for positions in state power or directly influence state power, and/or rules that structure the competition for state power (Weigle, 2000, pp. 49–50). The political society, it can be said, is the intersection of the state and the civil society. Authoritarian states generally do not tolerate the existence of an independent political society to contest state power. The tolerance of legal political opposition to contest state power is a major benchmark of a democracy in Dahl’s (1971) classic definition. In mature liberal democracies, the political society structures and channels political participation from the civil society, and is an important arena mediating between the society and the polity (Kuan, 1998, p. 1423). It is the arena for reconciliation of political interests in civil society and the transfer of state power among independent contestants (Weigle, 2000, p. 51). The major components of political society include the legislature, elected councils and decision-making bodies at various levels, and political parties. Scholars in comparative politics put particular emphasis on the role of political parties in developing and developed political systems. Huntington (1968) saw the development of political institutions to channel and structure political participation as the key to maintaining stability and order in developing polities, and to him political parties play a most important role in political institutionalization. For structural-functional theorists, political parties play the role of interest aggregation in a political system, a function vital for system maintenance through equilibrating the system with its environment (Almond and Powell, 1978). While interest groups in a plural society (part of civic society) play the role of interest articulation, political parties and other institutions in the political society structure, aggregate and reconcile these diverse demands and interests, and transform them into state policies. The growth of a mature political society thus is crucial for political development, especially in a democratizing society. It Political Society and Political Development 95 mediates conflicts in society and between state and society, which is vital to consensus building in a democratizing setting. It also helps effective public policy-making by channeling societal interests into the political process, which means public policies can better reflect social demands, a key to stable governance. It follows that the development of strong and effective political society is an important component in a developed political system. The political society of Hong Kong was weak or underdeveloped before the advent of partial democratization in the mid-80s. Other than the CCP and KMT-sponsored organizations, there were no organized parties in Hong Kong before the 1980s. Both the legislature and political parties enjoyed considerable growth in the period 1991 to 1997, due to the opening up of the regime after the introduction of popular elections. However, institutional and political changes after 1997 had led to a general degeneration of the political society in Hong Kong. This underdevelopment of the political society in the end led to less effective governance and a lag in political development after 1997. Chapters Five and Six discuss the role and development of two major components of the political society in Hong Kong: the legislature and the political parties, before and after 1997, respectively. They analyze how the legislature and political parties structured and channeled public participation, and how they mediated between civil society and the state in Hong Kong in different periods of Hong Kong’s political development. They discuss how institutional changes related to these two components of the political society after 1997 had led to weakened policy and political influence of these two institutions. Institutional and political changes also made them less able to reflect and channel public opinion and social interests, and to structure political cleavages in...