Public Policymaking in Hong Kong

Civic Engagement and State-Society Relations in a Semi-Democracy

Eliza W.Y. Lee, Elaine Y.M. Chan, Joseph C.W. Chan, Peter T.Y. Cheung, Wai Fung Lam, Wai Man Lam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135075163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: City Planning & Urban Development
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Why and how has civic engagement emerged in the policy process of Hong Kong as an Asian semi-democratic state? This book attempts to answer this question through examining six cases that straddle diverse policy domains. It identifies three explanatory factors, namely, the profile of a policy domain, the structure of societal interest, and the strength of the civil society sector as important in shaping the state's strategy in managing society, hence its propensity to engage. These factors affect the outcome through dynamic interaction between the state and societal actors. The findings outlined in the book show that the development of civic engagement in Hong Kong consists of both society-led and state-led cases. Society-led development brought about a high degree of openness and inclusiveness, whereas state-led civic engagement practices tended to be tactics utilized by the state for appeasing or depoliticizing civil society. Compared with other Asian regimes, the use of 'transgressive contention' as a way to compel the state to engage society is a feature that stands out in the liberal autocratic regime in Hong Kong.

1 Introduction

Civic engagement and public policymaking in a semi-democracy

The emergence of civic engagement in a semi-democracy: the case of Hong Kong

This book investigates why and how civic engagement practices have emerged in postcolonial Hong Kong as a semi-democracy in Asia. Hong Kong was a British colony for over a century before it was handed over to China in 1997 as the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) under the ‘one country, two systems’ arrangement. A high degree of autonomy is given to the HKSAR government and many features of the colonial system, including its economic system, civil service system and judicial system, were preserved. To date, it is a semi-democracy, and more specifically, a hybrid regime in Ma's (2008) sense: a partial democracy in a constitutional framework prescribed by the Basic Law.

By civic engagement here we refer to an arrangement through which the state opens up its policymaking process and actively includes citizens as partners in making decisions. This may involve the setting of the policy agenda, identification of problems, clarification of values and interests, or the development and prioritization of policy alternatives (CCSG 2007). Our underlying presumption is that authoritarian states tend to resist an open and inclusive approach to policymaking, and regard pluralism as threatening to regime stability. Since authoritarian states are not under the pressure of elections, they will not be responsive to social demand for participation. As such, civic engagement will only take place under extraordinary situations. Most of the time civic engagement will be adopted by the state only when there is substantial external pressure compelling it to do so. On the other hand, external pressure does not always succeed in forcing the state to open up. Quite the contrary, when the authoritarian state perceives that its vital interest of regime survival is being threatened, it might opt to close up its arena for participation. A third situation also exists, in which the state decides that, in anticipation of possible societal resistance, it may be wise to initiate a more participatory process. In other words, the authoritarian state, in the face of real or anticipated challenge from society, may adopt different strategies of management.

The government of Hong Kong is currently headed by a chief executive that is not popularly elected, but selected by an Election Committee of 1,200 electors. Its legislature (the Legislative Council, or LegCo) is in part popularly elected. Half of its members are returned by popular election, while the other half by functional constituencies (consisting of selected occupational sectors and significant interests). The legal system is largely inherited from the British common law system, with judicial independence enjoyed by the courts. In 1991, the outgoing British colonial government enacted the Hong Kong Bill of Rights Ordinance. The Basic Law contains a chapter on the basic rights of Hong Kong residents. Civil liberties are thus constitutionally protected.

Under this hybrid setting, on the one hand, the absence of popular elections as a mechanism for choosing the government means that state leaders do not face the uncertainty of losing their official positions in electoral competition and are thus not strongly compelled to be responsive to popular demands when making public policy. As a result, the state's policy networks remain exclusive and relatively impervious to outside influence. On the other hand, in a semi-democratic setting, electoral competition creates incentives for legislators (especially those from opposition parties) to attack the government's policy failures and shortcomings as a way of gaining popularity, while the presence of civic liberties provides a breeding ground for civil society activism. Opposition parties and sometimes even pro-establishment parties are compelled to collaborate with civil society as a way to pressurize the government to make policy changes. Even though state leaders are not faced with the ‘uncertainty’ of election, their reliance on good policy performance as a source of legitimacy means that they cannot completely ignore societal demand. In this sense, the collaboration of civil society groups, opposition parties and political elites (which refer to politicians within the legislature) may generate societal mobilization strong enough to pressurize the state to open up. In some situations, the state may also want to pre-empt societal discontent by taking the initiative to engage.

This book is largely a study of the conditions under which civic engagement has emerged in a semi-democracy like Hong Kong. It investigates how societal pressure has compelled the authoritarian state to adopt civic engagement, and the different strategies of societal management adopted by the state in the face of real or anticipated threats. Specifically, our research questions are: what are the conditions leading to societal mobilization? What strategies of mobilization may successfully lead the state to concede to societal demand for participation? What are the other conditions under which civic engagement may be granted by the state? What are the factors affecting the degree of openness and inclusiveness of the engagement exercises? Our thesis is that all these dimensions are highly affected by state–society relations. They are the outcome of interactive dynamics between the state and civil society.

This book project originated from a consultancy report entitled From Consultation to Engagement: The Road to Better Policy-making and Governance in Hong Kong, published in 2007 by the Centre for Civil Society and Governance, The University of Hong Kong, based on a study of civic engagement in Hong Kong commissioned by the Bauhinia Foundation. All the authors of this book were members of the research team. That study investigated four cases of civic engagement through interviewing government officials and civil society actors,¹ and came up with policy recommendations on how the government could achieve better governance through wider adoption of civic engagement exercises. While a substantial portion of this book is based on the findings in that study, we have added two more cases to the present volume. More importantly, the focus of this book goes beyond that of the consultancy report, which mainly stresses how civic engagement exercises may improve governance. Instead, this book attempts to come up with an analytical framework to explain why and how civic engagement has emerged as part of the process of governance in postcolonial Hong Kong.

Civic engagement: an international trend

In western democracies, civic engagement has recently come to be regarded as essential to good governance. Civic engagement, literally meaning the active involvement of citizens in public governance and policymaking, may happen in a variety of forms and through a range of activities. The International Association for Public Participation lists a spectrum of public participation in order of increasing level of public impact, ranging from inform, consult, involve, and collaborate, to empower.² The meanings of the terms are as follows:

• To inform is ‘to provide the public with balanced and objective information to assist them in understanding the problem, alternatives, opportunities and/ or solutions’.

• To consult means to ‘obtain public feedback on analysis alternatives and/or decisions’.

• In involving citizens, a government would ‘work directly with the public throughout the process to ensure that public concerns and aspirations are consistently understood and considered’.

• Collaborating with citizens would mean to ‘partner with the public in each aspect of the decision including the development of alternatives and the identification of the preferred solution’.

• Finally, to empower citizens is ‘to place final decision-making in the hands of the public’.

In this book, we largely focus on civic engagement activities that involve, collaborate with, and empower citizens. Ideally, such activities should demonstrate the commitment of a government to ‘open and inclusive policymaking’, paraphrasing the term used in the latest official report of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development on public engagement (OECD 2009). ‘Open refers to transparency, accessibility and responsiveness in the policy making process.’ ‘Inclusive denotes the effort to include as wide a variety of citizens' voices into the policy-making process as possible’ (2009: 24). Civic engagement contributes to good governance as a government may enjoy greater trust from its citizens, leverage knowledge and resources from society, better understand citizens' needs, and gain legitimacy. Policies may obtain higher compliance, while opening access to participation may help close the social, economic, cultural, and political divide (2009: 23).

Civic engagement has received a lot of attention from scholars, policymakers and citizens. From the very beginning, it has not developed as a purely abstract academic concept, but rather has been closely integrated with actual practices having major policy impact. Intellectually, the value of civic engagement is substantiated by several scholarly trends. The philosophical tradition of deliberative democracy (Cohen 2004; Gutmann and Thompson 1996) argues that public policy decisions should be based on reasoned arguments among free and equal citizens. Strands of thought such as ‘social capital’ (Coleman 1998 ; Putnam 2000), ‘empowered participatory governance’ (Fung and Wright 2003), and ‘state–society synergy’ (Evans 1997) all share the common themes of bottom-up participation, deliberation, and the trust in the capacity of ordinary people to make sensible decisions on issues affecting their lives, provided that they are given appropriate resources and institutional support (Lee and Thynne 2011).

Intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the OECD are attaching great importance to civil society organizations (CSOs) in their work. Institutional arrangements for fostering public deliberation have been developed and innovative practices in public deliberation are now commonplace in many western liberal democracies, ranging from citizens' juries, consensus conferences, scenario workshops, deliberative polling, and citizens' panels, to town meetings, and so on. Recent publications by Evans (1997), Fung and Wright (2003), the World Bank (2004) and the OECD (2009) all document case studies of innovative practices in many countries and communities. Some of the innovative practices revealed in their case studies, such as participatory budgeting, have generated real policy influence and have subsequently been adopted by other countries.

Traditionally, civic engagement is pertinent to western liberal democracies. On the other hand, in recent years the practice has also been adopted by non-liberal democratic regimes in different states of political development. While civic engagement has become a growing practice internationally, surprisingly few comparative studies have been devoted to the different contexts of their emer-gence. Especially, the cause and the conditions for the emergence of such practices beyond the established democratic regimes remain an understudied topic.

Civil society development and changing state–society relations

The literature on civil society development in Hong Kong commonly identifies three historical junctures: the early colonial years, the late colonial years includ-ing the years of political transition, and the postcolonial years. Each period also manifests changing state–society relations.

In the early period of colonial rule, the state was autocratic and there was no constitutional protection of civil rights. Nonetheless, where colonial domination was not threatened, the state held a tolerant attitude towards civil liberties. The colonial state treated society differentially, ranging from passive tolerance, co-optation and administrative control, to political suppression (Ngo 1999 ; Lee 2005a). At the same time, the Chinese society accepted colonial rule passively, but also at times became contentious and hyperactive, as witnessed in the numerous cases of serious riots (Lam 2004).

Over the years, the colonial state has definitely adjusted its approach towards managing society. This was especially so after the social riots in the 1960s when it concluded that the tremendous social discontent was caused by a lack of communication between the state and society. Afterwards, the City District Scheme was implemented in the urban area as a way to foster linkage between the state and society. However, no measures were taken to include the broader society in its governance process. Throughout colonial rule the state deviated little from the use of elite co-optation as a way to maintain domination.

The colonial state had long practised what King (1975) conceptualizes as ‘administrative absorption of politics’, which refers to the absorption of social elites into the governing machinery of the state as a way to obtain their support towards the latter. Specifically, social elites were appointed as unofficial members of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council – the apex of power of the colonial state. These social elites were predominantly from the business and professional sectors and in no way reflected the societal composition. The colonial state had also developed an extensive system of advisory bodies, which consisted of mostly non-statutory committees attached to various government departments and with both official and unofficial members appointed by the government. There were already 50 advisory committees in 1950; they numbered about 300 in 1997 and grew to over 400 in the early 2000s (HAB 2003). These mechanisms were championed by officials as the hallmark of ‘consultative democracy’ but denounced by its critics as nothing more than window-dressing devices that served to legitimize autocratic rule. The most common criticisms of the advisory systems were that government officials controlled the agenda, and hence what could be discussed in the meetings, which were mostly chaired by officials. Second, the government appointed mostly pro-establishment figures of business and professional backgrounds, while members from the grassroots were marginalized. Third, there was limited public accountability as meetings and minutes were mostly not open to the public. Fourth, even if there were different views expressed in the meetings of these committees, the government could still decide whether to adopt those views or not.

Despite all these shortcomings, colonial officials in the 1970s and 1980s seemed satisfied that their system of consultation was not merely window-dressing but fulfilled certain criteria of democratic participation in the absence of democracy. Their perceptions were not unwarranted. Inside these committees there were often moments of genuine discussion, disagreement or even criticism of the official views. As senior civil servants, both current and retired, told us in our interviews, in the 1970s and 1980s unofficial members in the Executive Council (and to a lesser extent the Legislative Council) could provide genuine input into policymaking, even though their power was heavily constrained by the fact that they were appointed by the governor. Some advisory committees were powerful, in part because they were chaired by community leaders who enjoyed exalted social status and who had demonstrated credibility and trust-worthiness in the minds of civil servants. These ‘strong’ chairpersons were at the same time assisted by other community leaders in the committees who could work well with the government (and it was no doubt for precisely this reason that the government appointed them). From the inside, the relationship between the state and social elites exhibited certain features, such as mutual trust, shared aims and terms of reference, and mutual confidence in frank deliberation that made civic participation in policymaking a genuine experience (CCSG 2007: 1–2).

The social elites that were part of the establishment knew only too well the rules of the game – they were not there to ‘rock the boat’ but were expected to work within certain tolerable parameters. The acceptance of this restricted autonomy by the active participants brought a significant degree of mutual trust and hence effectiveness in participation. Honest, frank discussion and disagreement between officials and unofficial committee members were possible. In fact, it was not uncommon for poorly written proposed policies or bills to be so strongly challenged in the committee room that they had to be returned to the government for drastic changes. Similarly, civil servants who could not provide the necessary facts and analysis to support a proposal would be looked upon with disapproval and sometimes even draw criticism from unofficial members. Citizen participation of this kind – heavily constrained and hence safe and controllable, yet at times genuine and influential – was as much as the colonial state could tolerate, and it was also as much as the weak, disorganized civil society could get. Needless to say, this precarious form of participation in policymaking was effective only against the background of an imbalance of power between the state and society (CCSG 2007: 1–2).

Other than the system of advisory committees, public consultation exercises were frequently conducted through publishing consultation documents (in the forms of Green Papers and White Papers), especially in the case of major and controversial policy change. In public consultation exercises, the public could deliberate. Since freedom of the press and freedom of speech were quite well tolerated by the colonial state, especially after the 1970s, the public were able to express their views through the mass media. Newspapers, radio talk shows and television programmes were common forums for public opinion formation. The public could also choose to submit their views in writing to the government department concerned. But at the end of the day, without the pressure of elections, the government could choose to ignore the broader public sentiment.

In short, from the apex of power of the state machinery to the advisory committee systems and consultation exercises, state officials were firmly in the driver's seat in policy decisions. Thus, public participation in the colonial era was mostly limited to ‘inform’ and ‘consult’.

In the late colonial period after the 1970s, which was also a time of industri-alization and high economic growth, the colonial state increased its role in social and economic development, and transformed itself into a public service state (Lee 2010). On the other hand, socio-economic development brought about the rise of civil society as a new generation of social activists started to challenge social injustice and environmental degradation and criticize the colonial state for its lack of responsiveness. Community activists would also organize citizens in protest activities. Civic activism emerged for a whole range of issues, from the student movement, workers' rights, gender equality and environmentalism, to the fight against corruption (So 1999). State–society relations were thus at times contentious. Stepping into the 1980s, the Sino-British negotiations began and the issue of 1997 brought about mor...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Comparative development and policy in Asia series
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Authors
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: civic engagement and public policymaking in a semi-democracy
• 2 The harbour protection movement
• 3 Southeast Kowloon planning
• 4 The West Kowloon Cultural District Project
• 5 The anti-poverty campaign
• 6 Municipal solid waste management
• 7 Arts and culture
• 8 Civic engagement in Asia: Hong Kong and other Asian countries compared
• 9 Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index