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Competing Political Visions in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong

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Abstract

This study analyzes the degree to which the issues of democracy and the relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China have polarized Hong Kong’s elite politics. By analyzing roll call voting behavior in the Legislative Council (LegCo, 1998–2012), I present empirical findings that these competing political visions have been the single most important cleavage in the legislature. At the same time, however, there are substantial differences among the LegCo members on the salience of this Beijing/democracy issue dimension. The political elites who are directly elected are less aligned to the main issue dimension. Roll call voting behaviors of the independents and the minor party members are also less explained by the major political issue cleavage. These findings provide an additional lens for a better understanding of the political landscape in Hong Kong.

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Notes

  1. In this paper, I interchangeably use the issues of democracy and the relationship between Hong Kong and China, China/democracy, and pro-China vs. pro-democracy, for stylistic reasons. All of these concepts are considered complementary to capturing the main political cleavage in Hong Kong [1].

  2. The executive has strong powers to control the LegCo, such as dissolution of parliament, but the LegCo does not have reciprocal powers. This executive-led principal was employed under British rule and has been continued until now [5].

  3. This is a unique feature of political institutions in the Greater China. Macau SAR has been using this FC system in its legislative elections since the handover from the Portuguese Republic [7]. It was also used in Taiwan before democratization [10].

  4. For example, voters in the Finance FC and the Legal FC comprise about 130 banks and related companies and about 5000 lawyers and law-related occupations, respectively.

  5. The other popular tools include the Optimal Classification [23] and Bayesian ideal point estimation techniques [22]. As a robustness check of the W-NOMINATE results, I also applied these two techniques and the results are identical.

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  1. University of Louisville, 101 E. Centennial Walk, Stevenson Hall, Room 209, Louisville, KY, 40292, USA

    Jinhyeok Jang

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Jang, J. Competing Political Visions in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI 21, 89–102 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-015-9361-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-015-9361-3

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