This book raises interesting questions about the process of democratization in Hong Kong. It asks why democracy has been so long delayed when Hong Kong's level of socio-economic development has become so high. It relates democratization in Hong Kong to wider studies of the democratization process elsewhere, and it supplements the received wisdom - that democracy was delayed because of colonial rule and by the opposition of China - with new thinking, for example, that its quasi-bureaucratic authoritarian political structure vested power in bureaucrats who refused to have top-down democratization; a politically weak civil society and a non-participant political culture that crippled bottom-up democratization; plus the division between pro-democratic civil society and political society.

Ming Sing

1. Studying Hong Kong With a Comparative Perspective: An Anomaly for Modernization Theory (1980-Mid-2000) 2. Hong Kong's Democratization: Outcome of Bargaining among Multiple Actors 3. Why was Hong Kong an Anomaly before 1984? Lack Of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Democratization (1946-1984) 4. UK's First Retreat from Rapid Democratization and Formation of the First Pro-Democratic Alliance 5. Growing Vibrancy of Society-Led Democratic Reform: Polarization, Compromise and Decisions over Hong Kong's Democratization (Late-1986-1990) 6. A Renewed Britain-Led Democratic Reform from 1992 to 1994: Ambivalence in Public Support Democratic Reform 7. 1992-1997: Decline in Popular Mobilization for Democracy and Emergence Of PRC-Initiated Democratic Reversal 8. Further Democratic Reversal in the Post-Handover Period: Mid-1997-2002 9. Hong Kong as a Rare Anomaly to Modernization Theory