The story of two administrative states: state capacity in Hong Kong and Singapore

Abstract

Hong Kong and Singapore are both typical administrative states with an efficient administration and a vibrant market, which had achieved rapid economic growth in the past decades. This article examines the trajectory of their state capacity, highlighting recent problems and challenges. Based on a conceptual framework that captures and links up four dimensions – namely polity, bureaucracy, economy and civil society – their commonalities and differences in response are discussed. Their experience should be of particular relevance to transitional authoritarian states in Asia such as China, which faces similar challenges to reform in the arenas of politics, administration, economics and society.     

The capitalist state and political practice

Text reviewed:

N. Poulantzas (1978) State, Power, Socialism London, New Left Books, pp. 269, £7.50.     

The PLA and regionalism in Hong Kong

This article examines the linkages between changes in international capital movements and currency values on the one hand and Asian regionalism on the other. It argues that economic ties within Asia in the late 1980s and early 1990s can be traced primarily to the increasing values of currencies in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong. Foreign-direct investments from companies in these countries increased throughout the Asian region. Intra-regional trade grew rapidly as well. Still, by the turn of the century, in contrast to regionalism in Europe, that in Asia remained deeply institutionalized and far less responsive to any central direction from potential leaders such as Japan.     

Administrative reform in a changing political environment: The case of Hong Kong

Since 1989, the Hong Kong government has implemented a programme of public sector reform that is based on the principles of ‘new public management’. The reforms initially focused mainly on financial management reform, including delegating responsibilities for resource allocation; re-defining the roles of the central resource branches; setting up trading funds in departments that provide services directly to the public; and instilling a new corporate culture of service throughout the government. Some progress has been made in implementing the reforms. In 1993, the government realized that further civil service reform was necessary to support the reforms. The government proposed to delegate more authority to department heads on personnel matters; give managers more freedom to manage personnel; and simplify personnel regulations and procedures. These ‘new public management’-type reforms are usually associated with stable, relatively unchanging environments. In Hong Kong, however, the reforms have been proposed and carried out in an environment of considerable political turbulence which has both facilitated and hindered their implementation. Because of the declining legitimacy of the colonial government, British authorities may not have the political capacity to implement the reforms. Opposition from both department heads and civil service unions to aspects of the reforms has already emerged.     

Contesting Citizenship in Post-Handover Hong Kong

Journal of Chinese Political Science - The British colonial rule inscribed a passive citizenship in Hong Kong with its de-politicized and de-nationalized governing strategies. Central to this...     

Public Service Neutrality in Hong Kong: Problems and Prospects

Before 2002, Hong Kong's higher civil servants were required to play the dual role of quasi-ministers and civil servants. In such a context, can we make sense of the claim that Hong Kong's civil service has all along been politically neutral? What role has neutrality played in the governance of Hong Kong? Informed by Kernaghan's model of political neutrality and Oakeshott's idea of civil association, this article argues that the public service should not be regarded solely as an effective instrument of the government in power. In conclusion, this article proposes some institutional measures to strengthen the neutrality of the public service in Hong Kong and argues that properly understanding this will help prevent excessive or illegitimate partisan political power.     

How Authoritarianism Intensifies Punctuated Equilibrium: The Dynamics of Policy Attention in Hong Kong

The punctuated equilibrium theory contends that government attention allocation is universally leptokurtic in that long periods of stability are punctuated by bursts of rapid and radical change; the empirical evidence in support of this claim is however exclusively drawn from democratic systems. The absence of electoral politics and institutional decentralization in authoritarian regimes could presumably affect institutional friction; whether and how this might pose as a qualification to the thesis is of major interest. By analyzing four streams of government actions in Hong Kong from 1946 to 2007 straddling the colonial and postcolonial regimes, we have found that government processes are generally leptokurtic even under authoritarian regime institutions, with the degree of the dispersion of decision‐making power across the streams of actions affecting the magnitude of punctuation. We have also found that punctuation was greater when the political system was more centralized but declined as the political system democratized.     

Government intervention in the economy: a comparative analysis of Singapore and Hong Kong

Singapore and Hong Kong are very different and yet very similar in many respects. A study of their current profiles and historical development indicates that the two have achieved comparable economic successes through different development strategies. After World War II, Singapore gained political independence while Hong Kong achieved economic restructuring. The Singapore government adopted an interventionist approach to develop its economy, while the Hong Kong government followed the laissez‐faire principle. However, as the two were maturing socially and economically in the last few decades, both governments found the necessity to adopt a hybrid strategy of mixing economic interventions with the free‐market approach. An examination of public finance and economic policies since the onset of the Asian economic turmoil shows that the two have become increasingly similar in their economic approaches, with heavy emphasis on stabilizing the economy and stimulating business activities through government initiatives. Based on their projected economic, social and political development, the Hong Kong government is expected to become more interventionist while its Singapore counterpart is expected to go in the opposite direction. The economic development strategies of the two governments, coming from two extremes, will become more alike in the foreseeable future, for reasons of political feasibility in the former. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coordinating the Government Bureaucracy in Hong Kong: An Institutional Analysis

The change in sovereignty of Hong Kong in 1997 has brought about an interesting puzzle: despite a high degree of institutional continuity, the Hong Kong bureaucracy that was considered highly efficient during the colonial era has appeared to turn into an inept administrative structure generating blunder after blunder. The bureaucracy seems to face greater difficulties in horizontal coordination under the new governance, and has lost the ability to produce coherent policy actions.
Drawing upon a literature of institutional analysis, this article examines the institutional design for coordination in the Hong Kong government. The article argues that the bureaucracy in Hong Kong is designed upon a logic of colonial rule. Like any institutional arrangements, the colonial administrative system has inherent coordination limitations. During the colonial era, some smoothing mechanisms were developed as the lubricant for the bureaucracy's operation, but the new governance has inevitably impinged upon some of these—making the bureaucracy more prone to coordination problems.