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Social Change, Bureaucratic Rule, and Emergent Political Issues in Hong Kong

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2011

Lau Siu-Kai
Lau Siu-Kai
Affiliation:
Sociology at The Chinese University of Hong Kong
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Abstract

Hong Kong's postwar economic “miracle” has been sustained by a minimally integrated social-political system, the two constituent parts of which are a laissez-faire bureaucracy and a “self-sufficient,” atomistic Chinese society. Until recently, this system has operated to keep politically salient issues to a manageable minimum. Secular, asymmetrical changes, however, have opened up cracks in the system; their disruptive effects have become increasingly visible. Because of its overly rapid economic growth, the organizational fabric of the Chinese society has worn away, making it more dependent on the government for need satisfaction. Together with the administrative imperatives befitting a complex industrial society, this dependence furthers the emergence of a professionalized and expanded bureaucracy. The problem of linkage between the government and the Chinese society is aggravated by the inadequacy of existing intermediary devices. As a result, a new style of politics is emerging in Hong Kong, reflecting its troubled structural conditions.

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , July 1983 , pp. 544 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1983

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References

1 See Siu-kai, Lau, “Utilitarianistic Familism: The Basis of Political Stability in Hong Kong,” in King, Ambrose Y.C. and Lee, Ranee P.L., eds., Social Life and Development in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1981), 195–216Google Scholar, and Society and Politics in Hong Kong (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1982).

2 Siu-kai, Lau, “Chinese Familism in an Urban-Industrial Setting: The Case of Hong Kong,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 43 (November 1981), 977–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Siu-kai, Lau and Kam-fai, Ho, “Social Accommodation of Politics: The Case of the Young Hong Kong Workers,” Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 20 (July 1982), 172–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Ibid.

5 Siu-kai, Lau, “The Government, Intermediate Organizations, and Grass-roots Politics in Hong Kong,” Asian Survey 21 (August 1981), 865–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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8 Yates, Douglas, The Ungovernable City: The Politics of Urban Problems and Policy Making (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1978), 22.Google Scholar

9 Siu-kai, Lau, “Local Administrative Reform in Hong Kong: Promises and Limitations,” Asian Survey 22 (September 1982), 858–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar