Legitimacy‐Building in the Macau special administrative region: Colonial legacies and reform strategies

The retrocession of Macau to Mainland China's sovereignty since December 20, 1999 has initiated an unprecedented process of legitimacy‐building in the new Special Administrative Region. The Chief Executive, Edmund Ho, has implemented a multiplicity of reform strategies for the sake of consolidating his legitimacy. The twilight of the Portuguese colonial era was plagued by a rapid deterioration in law and order and the persistence in public maladministration, thus weakening the departing colonial regime's performance legitimacy seriously. As such, the political environment was conducive to Ho's herculean efforts at establishing his performance legitimacy. While the new Chief Executive's procedure legitimacy was enhanced by his election from an Election Committee composed of political elites, Ho's performance legitimacy has been buttressed by depoliticisation, economic development, civil service reforms, and new constitutional conventions. The abolition of the Municipal Councils in 2000 ran the risk of delegitimising the Ho regime. Yet, such delegitimisation was by no means serious given the relatively weak political opposition. Still, in the face of a more active and assertive citizenry, political reforms will have to be pondered and implemented by the post‐colonial regime in Macau. It will be necessary for the Macau government to utilise democratic reforms in a bid to preempt the increasingly vociferous demands for more participatory channels. The case of Macau corroborates the existence of a dialectical process of legitimisation, which has been strengthened mainly by depoliticisation and economic development, and delegitimisation, which is looming in the midst of a steadily growing political activeness on the part of the Macau people.     

The 2001 Legislative Assembly Elections and Political Development in Macau

The objective of this article is to analyze the major trends in post-1999 Macau's political development as evidenced by the evolving role of its legislature as well as the 2001 legislative elections. The article argues that (1) the Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) political system, thanks to the constitutional design of its Basic Law and the political convention inherited from the former Portuguese administration, is dominated by the executive branch of power or an ‘executive-led’ system; (2) the dramatic win by the Association for New Democratic Macau in the direct elections does not suggest a breakthrough in Macau's democratization process because altogether the pro-democracy groups won less than one-third of the total votes; (3) Macau is ruled by a conservative pro-Beijing power elite comprising prominent local businesspeople and leaders of the labour unions and neighbourhood associations; and (4) a new political convention that the MSAR government, though not popularly elected, is accountable to the Macau citizens seems to be emerging. In any event, democratization in Macau is likely to be a very long and gradual process.     

6. Altbergbau-Kolloquium vom 9.–11. November 2006 an der RWTH Aachen Bericht über die juristischen Referate

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Editors note

As the African Peer Review Mechanism marks its fifth birthday in 2007, the authors take stock of the initiative's successes and challenges. The APRM can claim considerable achievements but the complexity of the process, its slow pace, and problems in some review countries raise questions which are highlighted in this detailed examination.     

The Commandments from Mount Laurel: New Route to the Unpromised Land

Among those who would reform land use controls to achieve greater equity in urban development there has existed some disagreement between advocates of litigative and legislative approaches. The latter have looked to the Massachusetts Zoning Appeals Law, the A.L.I. Model Land Development Code, statutorily mandated housing planning, revisions of zoning enabling legislation or some variant of these, as the best way to the unpromised land. They have also noted that after almost a decade of litigation in which many victories were won for specific clients, litigators have little to show in the way of housing actually provided; although the educational impact of the case law on federal legislation and other legislative proposals has been significant.