Understanding the Political Culture of Hong Kong: The Paradox of Activism and Depoliticization. By Lamwai-Man. [Armonk, NY and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2004. xi +291 pp. $72.95. ISBN: 0-7656-1313-1.]

2004 ◽  
Vol 180 ◽  
pp. 1108-1109
Author(s):  
Agnes S. Ku

Buttressed by local scholarship, the conventional understanding of Hong Kong's political culture has long dwelt on the notions of apathy and indifference. Understanding the Political Culture of Hong Kong advances an interesting and provocative thesis to refute the conventional claim by taking readers through a historical journey of Hong Kong's major conflict events between 1949 and 1979. The author ambitiously seeks to engage in a critical evaluation of the conventional theses, especially that by Siu-kai Lau in the 1980s. Lau's idea of utilitarian familism, which is much cited in Hong Kong studies, provides an explanation of political apathy that locates the causes in the wider culture as well as in weak state-society relations. Questioning Lau's thesis on strong methodological, conceptual and empirical grounds, the author aims to present an alternative reading of Hong Kong politics, which she captures well in the subtitle: the paradox of activism and depoliticization.Contrary to Lau, the author argues that political participation was neither minimal nor simply utilitarian. She broadens the conception of political participation to include political acts targeted at the local government, the Chinese government and private institutions; discursive activities through the press; and politically relevant activities via social organizations and social movements. Using a multiple-case interpretive approach, she draws on 13 events as case studies and analyses them in terms of their scale, intensity, publicity, significance and ideological claims. The author maintains that all of the events were “impressive” and were “part of larger movements that persisted over a number of decades and that were sustained by the particular nature of society and politics at that time” (p. 229). These testify to the existence of significant levels of political activism. Adding a twist to her argument, the author further maintains that a culture of depoliticization existed side by side with political activism, which functioned to check left-wing activism in the context of Cold War and Chinese politics.

2008 ◽  
Vol 193 ◽  
pp. 84-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis L. F. Lee ◽  
Joseph M. Chan

AbstractA wave of large-scale demonstrations from 2003 to 2006 has given rise to a new pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and raised important questions about the political activism of the Hong Kong public. This study aims at achieving a better understanding of the cultural underpinnings of Hong Kong people's protest participation (and non-participation). Following a tradition of constructivist analysis which sees culture as a set of shared and more or less structured ideas, symbols, feelings and common senses, this study examines how participants in the pro-democracy protests make sense of their experiences and the ongoing political and social changes in Hong Kong. It shows that the 1 July 2003 demonstration has indeed empowered many of its participants, but feelings of efficacy became more complicated and mixed as people continued to monitor changes in the political environment and interpret the actions of others. At the same time, beliefs and ideas that can be regarded as part of Hong Kong's culture of de-politicization remain prevalent among the protesters. The findings of the study allow us to understand why many Hong Kong people view protests as important means of public opinion expression and yet participate in them only occasionally.


MUWAZAH ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Nurbaity Prastyananda Yuwono

Women's political participation in Indonesia can be categorized as low, even though the government has provided special policies for women. Patriarchal political culture is a major obstacle in increasing women's political participation, because it builds perceptions that women are inappropriate, unsuitable and unfit to engage in the political domain. The notion that women are more appropriate in the domestic area; identified politics are masculine, so women are not suitable for acting in the political domain; Weak women and not having the ability to become leaders, are the result of the construction of a patriarchal political culture. Efforts must be doing to increase women's participation, i.e: women's political awareness, gender-based political education; building and strengthening relationships between women's networks and organizations; attract qualified women  political party cadres; cultural reconstruction and reinterpretation of religious understanding that is gender biased; movement to change the organizational structure of political parties and; the implementation of legislation effectively.


2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. 1339-1358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsuro Kobayashi

Despite the concern that partisan selectivity in the political use of social media leads to mass polarization, the empirical evidence is mixed at best. Given the possibility that these inconclusive findings are attributable to moderators in the process that have not been adequately studied, this article elaborates the roles played by different forms of social identities. By analyzing three datasets collected in Hong Kong, where Chinese and Hong Kongese identities are constructed in a nonmutually exclusive way, this study demonstrates that (1) partisan selectivity in media use is reliably detected among those with single Hong Kongese identity, but not among those with dual identities of Hong Kongese and Chinese, (2) the political use of social media polarizes the attitudes and affects of single identifiers, whereas it has depolarizing effects on dual identifiers, and (3) these contrasting effects on polarization between single and dual identifiers have downstream consequences for political participation.


2020 ◽  

In democracy, political participation is seen as the most important way for citizens to communicate information to political decision-makers (Sydney Verba) and the bureaucracy affiliated to them. Protest plays a special role here among the political and cultural varieties of participation, since it can be seen as a symptom of democratic defects or as an expression of a living, transformative democracy. Civic education situates itself in relation to this particular form of expression of political culture in a multidimensional way: it transmits basic democratic values to educational institutions and marks the boundaries of accepted practice of protest quite differently. This can also result in a transformative practice of protest (Banks), which is also discussed in this volume. In it, the authors resurvey the field of political education according to the conditions of the current crisis-ridden transformation in democracy. This anthology was created to document the 2017 Münster Conference of the DVPW-Committee on Political Science and Civic Education.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122
Author(s):  
Pia Khoirotun Nisa

Muhammadiyah is one of the elements from the public room of Indonesia, it accepts amount of political policies from the power of nation and responses them as the tradition of its organization. The special characteristic of organization determines political communication that is used. In doing political communication, the political elite of Muhammadiyah has to be able to play very important role in a political system because it becomes determined part from the process of political socialization, political culture, political participation and political recruitment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 112-125
Author(s):  
Nataliya Latova ◽  

The article tests the hypothesis, based on the concept of post-industrial society that people with higher education will be more politically active, especially in the manifestation of the demand for change. For this purpose, the materials of the All-Russian poll, organized in March 2021 by the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, are used to analyze the sociopolitical characteristics associated with political activism and the formation of a demand for change among different educational groups of Russians. The conclusion is made that, first, education in modern Russia does directly affect an individual's preparedness for political action: more educated Russians are more interested in the political life of the country and are more aware of their ability to influence the "rules of the game". Second, education does directly affect actual involvement in social and political activism. However, concerning conscious political participation, this effect relates not so much to everyday, regular, as to its extreme protest forms. Third, the education of Russians has no discernible correlation with the presence/absence of a liberal demand for change. In terms of meeting the minimum requirements for political participation, Russian educational groups currently correspond to the Western political science mainstream theory and the practices of developed countries. Nevertheless, the highlighted features of the political characteristics of Russians with higher and post-higher education (not all of the examined indicators are stable in dynamics, not all differences between educational groups are clearly expressed, and, in general, the participation of highly educated Russians in the political life of the country is rather formal) lead to the need for a more careful study of the findings not only of the Western scientific mainstream but also of alternative concepts of Third World researchers. In addition, it has been suggested that the emancipation of a group of highly educated Russians from the state is incomplete. Consequently, they are aware of their objectively central place and leading role in political life.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 206-220
Author(s):  
Aklima Aklima ◽  
Ramzi Murziqin ◽  
Reni Shintasari ◽  
Aja Sanawiyah

This research deals with the participation of students in Islamic boarding schools (dayah), which tend to deepen religion so that political information is limited. This study aims to determine the political participation of students in Nagan Raya Aceh 2017. This research is important because it looks at the attitude of students in political power relations. The urgency of this research is to understand the political culture of the santri, which is not only seen from the Kyai as a determinant of political choices. This research uses a qualitative method of the case study approach. The results of this study indicate that the behavior of voters (santri) with the Michigan School approach where the political attitudes and choices are chosen is not only based on the leadership of the pesantren / santri but there is direct involvement by the participation of the students with three aspects.


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