Autocracy in Making: Evidence from Hong Kong

With reference to the extant literature on autocracy and authoritarian institutions, this chapter presents the findings of one of the first attempts to study Hong Kong as one of the best-known episodes of abrupt and thorough autocratization in the past few years which marks the end of the city’s liberal authoritarian epoch and the onset of the so-called Patriots-only governance under Beijing’s tutelage. Moving beyond the general perceptions of “mainlandization,” this chapter attempts to account for the institutional choices by shedding light on how state repression, autocratic legalism, self-legitimation, and power-sharing are designed and deployed to cement the new order, and to delineate the contours of public sympathies and antipathies toward the regime with the help of on-going surveys and observational data. The analysis reveals that a path-dependent trajectory toward autocratization is now in place; the self-reinforcing mechanism is attributable to the siege mentality that the ruling elites have frequently shown to prioritize state repression and autocratic legalism over other tactics.