Introduction
Before 1997, Hong Kong was being the colony of the United Kingdom, politics in Hong Kong is different from the mainland China and it is unique from other countries. After 1997, the sovereignty of Hong Kong is regressed to China, then the Hong Kong politics was under the foundation of ‘One Country Two systems’ and it is regulated by the Basic Law of Hong Kong.
In almost each countries’ political system, political parties would be found. Political parties could divide into two main class which are authoritarian and democratic. They might explore power by-election and social movements. Political parties are usually organized by a group of people who shared the similar political ideas or ideologies. Parties are mostly focusing on extensive tasks that involve in varied perspectives of the government’s policies. There are many types of political parties, for instance core and accumulation, representative and unifying, left-wing and right-wing, and constitutional and revolutionary parties. (Heywood, 2007)
In general, the role and the main function of parties in politics system are description, selected formation and recruitment, goal formulation, interest expression and collection, socialization and mobilization and association of government. (Heywood, 2007) Hong Kong has being the colony of England for 99 years, the politics system was alike to the Western. In Hong Kong, the politics is leading by the administration. The political parties are slightly different with other countries or cities. The political parties in Hong Kong do not look for maintaining power for their long term goal. Hong Kong can be divided into two main categories that are Pro-democracy and Pro-Beijing political parties. The duty of...
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All in all, even though two different political parties hold varied political ideas and ideology, their development will affect the Hong Kong Politics and the development of democracy. The development of political parties is not stable. It is regulated by the laws that set up during the colonial period. Besides, there are not enough civil-education about the knowledge of politics to the citizens. The degree of precipitating in politics among people are low. People usually not interested in political problems or issues. However, the political parties are essential for a political system, they have the function of constructing policies, keep an eye on the government daily working and affairs. The citizens should be more active and raise the awareness to political issues, to be the mainstay of the Hong Kong development in the future.
A political party is a group of people who seek to win elections and hold public office in order to shape government policy and programs. George Washington warned the nation against creating political parties in his famous “Farewell Address”. He feared political parties would divide the country and weaken support for the Constitution (Doc 4). The first major political parties, the Federalists and the Republicans, were created during the term of President George Washington. Despite President Washington’s warning, the rise of the two political parties, in the years after his term, was inevitable.
Party is an inevitable feature of the democracy and it is defined as ‘an autonomous group of citizens having the purpose of making nominations and contesting elections in the hope of gaining control over governmental power through the capture of public offices and the organization of the government’ (Caramani, 2011, p.220). Parties are ubiquitous in modern political systems and they perform a number of functions, they are: coordination, contesting elections, recruitment, and representation (Caramani, 2011). Political parties are the product of the parliamentary and electoral game, and party systems reflect the social oppositions that characterize society when parties first appear (Coxall et al., 2011).
A small fishing island with only 800 people living on it, measuring only 424 miles long, would you have thought that it would become a megacity with a population of 7 million plus(HK GOV) The colonisation of Hong Kong left many positive impacts and truly supported the development of HK and this shows in many ways when Hong Kong was under British Rule. Some of the ways the British aided Hong Kong was the economy, the transportation and even created a system of governance in HK. Without the Britain Hong Kong would not have the same democratic system of governance it has today. (LEGAL HK)
Hong Kong Reading - "The Book of the Year" Through imperialism, British rule encouraged industrialization and modernization which led to visible growth in the economy as the city is described as a trade center and important in manufacturing and banking, which suggests that the industries and businesses prospered. Additionally, the fear of Chinese rule suggests that businesses operated better under British rule, which shows how imperialism improved the lives of the people of Hong Kong compared to the government before imperial rule. The way that citizens of Hong Kong left the colony before it was returned to China further highlights the different effects of British rule and Chinese rule on the people, suggesting that British rule was preferred by the citizens of Hong Kong which is why they left rather than live under Chinese rule. This implies that the colonized people considered Great Britain’s imperialist rule to be better than the government before which was Chinese. This demonstrates that imperialism improved the lives of the colonized people because it helped the economy grow and prosper.
Party identification is the political party that an individual categorizes themselves with. Political parties came about as a way to organize citizens with similar beliefs and attitudes. These parties then attempt to influence the government by electing members into office. Today there are two main parties people can identify with: Republican and Democrat. There is also a third choice, being an Independent, but for the purpose of this paper this group will not be recognized as a political party.
Whether a country has a parliamentary or presidential system, whether it is democratic or autocratic, political parties exist and flourish all over the world. One of the major ways that parties in various countries differ is by the way that the leadership enforces the rest...
Japanese attitude and values inevitably affect how we view, feel and act about things as is exemplified in relation to politics. The functioning of political institutions reflects the attitudes, norms and expectations of citizens. In times of systematic change, a supportive public can facilitate the development of a new political system, while the lack of public support can destroy the foundation of a political system. In order to understand the tendencies for present and future behavior in a nation, we must examine a country's political culture-the public's attitude toward politics and their role within the political system. It is important to recognize that political culture does not explain everything about politics
Canada is very different from what they saw of politics in Hong Kong and China."
Ever since the beginning of Political Parties, the essence of such groups has always been to contribute to the common good. In todays day and age, it’s our job as citizens to partake in government affairs, but how do we pick a side with so many issues and laws going about? While it’s often hard to gain a point of view on an issue, Political Parties withhold perspective on an issue in order to rally support for what the best solution to every issue should be. Moreover Political Parties carry on major rules in allowing us to partake in government affairs by inducing us to vote. Similarly Political parties form an important effort in monitoring other parties in power in order to better ensure that everything is done for the common good.
Political systems are very complex to comprehend if one doesn’t know the role of most agencies, branches, and parties. Government functions are not as independent in ruling as one might think; for they are composed of multiple branches and most branches consist of politicians coming from multiple parties. Political Parties are accordingly the essence of politics, they define a country’s political system; one party, bi-partisan, or multiparty system. The inter-relation between parties and governments is an important phenomenon in political science, because parties are basically the connecting link between the people and their governments. (Panebianco p7) However, parties can also be a source of chaos in some cases, especially when they don’t agree on certain issues; they could cause a deadlock in the system as was visible recently with the American budget policy. Or they can take the disagreement into violence as was the case with the Lebanese civil war. Thus one cannot underestimate the important role of political parties, most if not all executives and legislatives come from a political party, one might have independent politicians in power but it’s usually rare. (Jankowski 22) Political parties also play a great role in spreading their ideologies to the citizens of their nations; in the US for example you have two similar yet different parties each spreading their ideologies to their followers. Therefore the role of political parties is a complex one and it shall be examined by understanding their role, how they aggregate support, what are their roles in governments, concluding with short case studies on Lebanon, Syria, and the UK.
In representative government, parties are often found. Perhaps the most prevalent danger in a party system is a party split, which paralyzes government just as much as a divergence of executive, legislative, and judicial powers in government.
Solidarity Philippines Australia Network, ‘The Party List System in the Philippines’, KASAMA Vol. 17 No. 3 / July–August–September 2003 cpcabrisbane.org/Kasama/2003/V17n3/PartyList.htm, viewed 02 June 2010.
Political parties are the link between general society and the representative machinery of our government. In order for an effective democracy to be in place, these political parties must be continually operative in the functions that they carry out. They are vehicles in which groups of people as well as individuals work together to secure political power, and to exercise that...
Universal suffrage is a crucial stepping-stone of Hong Kong democracy development; undoubtedly it should be treated seriously and carefully. China Central Government, as usual, will support the decision of Hong Kong government and Hong Kong people. And at all circumstances, will remained committed to upholding the “One Country, Two Systems” principle and the Basic Law.
In recent years, Hong Kong education system has undergone a great change. In the past, students studied five-year junior secondary education, two-year senior secondary education and three-year tertiary education. Since school year 2009/10, secondary and tertiary education composed of three-year junior secondary education, three-year senior education and four-year tertiary education (3-3-4 Scheme). Apart from the academic structure of education system, new compulsory subjects like Liberal Studies was also introduced to facilitate independent thinking of students. The examples given above showed that the HKSAR government is working hard to change the education system from similar to the British system, to similar to the Chinese system. Given that Hong Kong’s education system changes from time to time, how will the sociologists see from these changes? The following essay is going to discuss the education system of Hong Kong based on the following three sociological perspective: the structural-functional approach, the social-conflict approach and the symbolic-interaction approach.