Regime change and bureaucratic response: Hong Kong in transition
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230150308 |
| Author | Ian Scott |
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, VOL.
15,22>231 (1995)
Regime change and bureaucratic response:
Hong Kong in transition
IAN
SCOTT
Murdoch
University,
Australia
INTRODUCTION
This article addresses three concerns: (a) the traditional values
of
the Hong Kong
public service, some of which have been maintained despite historical changes to the
tasks
of
government; (b) the effect of Chinese resumption of sovereignty on these
values; and (c) what lessons, if any, may be drawn for public administration in other
transitional, especially small, states.
Hong Kong is sometimes held up as an example of an ideal relationship between a
bureaucracy and an economy.
Two
decades ago, the supposed advantages
of
this
relationship were seen in expressly ideological terms (Freedman,
1980).
A
bureaucracy, such as that in Hong Kong, that intervened only minimally in the
economy was believed to be conducive to rapid economic growth; by contrast, the
heavy hand of socialism and the welfare state was seen to require a large bureaucracy
supported by a high level of taxation that drained resources and initiatives from the
private sector. It should be emphasized that this dichotomy was at once both
simplistic and inaccurate. It was simplistic because the relationship between a
bureaucracy and an economy does not hang on the single undimensional thread of
greater or lesser intervention. It was inaccurate because, as some senior Hong Kong
civil servants were at pains to point out, the Hong Kong government did intervene in
such fields as the provision of public housing when it saw the need to do
so.
Nonetheless, there is in Hong Kong today, as there was two decades ago, a strong
sentiment in the business class that bureaucratic intervention, perhaps powered by
greater democratization, leads down an inevitable slippery slope to the welfare state
and higher levels
of
taxation. Historically, however, the Hong Kong government has
never been able to afford the luxury of an ideological response to questions of
governance. Its concerns have been essentially pragmatic, focusing on the difficulties
of maintaining the legitimacy of a colonial regime, and concentrating on very
narrowly defined goals. The extent to which it had a vision of the future is summed
up in the oft-repeated, but seldom defined, phrase, ‘stability and prosperity’.
Reactive governments of this kind take on curious shapes if they are viewed from a
longer-term perspective.
Ian
Scott
is
Professor
in the
Politics
Section
of
the
School
of
Social
Sciences
at
the
Murdoch
University,
Murdoch, WA
6150,
Australia.
CCC
0271-2075/95/03022547
0
1995
by
John
Wiley
&
Sons,
Ltd.
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