An analysis of the politics of transition in Hong Kong, focusing on the tug-of-war between China and Britain on democratization, and on the interactions between the increasingly politically active people of Hong Kong and the democratizing colonial regime. The successes and failures of British policy since 1984, and the missed opportunities to democratize faster prior to Governor Patten's appointment in 1992 are examined.

This thoroughly researched study provides an invaluable account of Hong Kong's political evolution from its founding as a British colony to the present. Exploring the interplay between colonial, capitalist, communist, and democratic forces in shaping Hong Kong's political institutions and culture, Suzanne Pepper offers a fresh perspective on the territory's development and a gripping account of the transition from British to Chinese rule. The author carries her narrative forward through the lives of significant figures, capturing the personalities and issues central to understanding Hong Kong's political history. Bringing a balanced view to her often contentious subject, she places Hong Kong's current partisan debates between democrats and their opponents within the context of China's ongoing search for a viable political form. The book considers Beijing's increasing intervention in local affairs and focuses on the challenge for Hong Kong's democratic reformers in an environment where ultimate political power resides with the communist-led mainland government and its appointees.

This book raises interesting questions about the process of democratization in Hong Kong. It asks why democracy has been so long delayed when Hong Kong's level of socio-economic development has become so high. It relates democratization in Hong Kong to wider studies of the democratization process elsewhere, and it supplements the received wisdom - that democracy was delayed because of colonial rule and by the opposition of China - with new thinking, for example, that its quasi-bureaucratic authoritarian political structure vested power in bureaucrats who refused to have top-down democratization; a politically weak civil society and a non-participant political culture that crippled bottom-up democratization; plus the division between pro-democratic civil society and political society.

While many scholars of democratization focus on outside forces and legal change, political sociologist Alvin So argues that - in the case of Hong Kong - the societal dimension reveals more clearly the issues and difficulties of establishing a viable democracy. He shows how Hong Kong moved from being a non-democracy in the 1970s, to a restricted democracy in the 1980s, to a contested democracy in the 1990s, and how Hong Kong now negotiates a democratic compromise under Chinese rule."--BOOK JACKET.

A new era in the democracy movement in Hong Kong began on July 1, 2003, when half a million people protested on the streets, and has included the 2012 anti-National Education campaign, the 2014 Occupy Central Movement and the rapid rise of localist groups. The new democracy movement in Hong Kong is characterized by a diversity of interest groups calling for political reform, policy change and the territory’s autonomy vis-à-vis the central government in Beijing. These groups include lawyers, teachers, students, nativists, workers, Catholics, human rights activists, environmental activists and intellectuals. This book marks a new attempt at understanding the activities of the various interest groups in their quest for democratic participation, governmental responsiveness and openness. They are utilizing new and unconventional modes of political participation, such as the Occupy Central Movement, cross-class mobilization, the use of technology and cyberspace, and human rights activities with cross-boundary implications for China’s political development. The book will be useful to students, researchers, officials, diplomats and journalists interested in the political change of Hong Kong and the implications for mainland China.

This book is a unique contribution to the study of democratization in Hong Kong, with chapters including the legal tradition in Hong Kong, the features of Hong Kong's indigenous democracy, the 2014 Umbrella Movement, and the evolution of the Chief Executive election.

This title describes the present political system and development in Hong Kong. The second edition assesses the main strands of continuity and change in Hong Kong's government and politics since the creation of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 1997.

This book reviews the political development of Hong Kong before and after 1997, in particular the evolution of state-society relations in the last two decades, to analyze the slow development of democracy and governance in Hong Kong after 1997. This book is a most comprehensive analysis of the multi-faceted changes in Hong Kong in the last 20 years. The scope of changes analyzed included state functions and institutions, political changes such as party development and development of the Legislative Council, and social changes such as social movements, civil liberties, etc. It helps the reader understand the crisis of governance of Hong Kong after 1997, and the difficulty of democratic development in Hong Kong over the years. The book covers: changing state institutions in Hong Kong in the last few decades; party development in Hong Kong; the changing role and function of the legislature in Hong Kong; the evolution of social movement and movement organizational forms; media freedom, civil liberties, and the role of civil society; and theoretical discussions concerning governance problems and state-society relations in Hong Kong. Special emphasis is placed on how these changes brought about a new state-society relation, which in turn brought governance difficulties after 1997.