Upcoming Talks
Legitimating the autocratization of Hong Kong: Evidence from secondary school textbooks
Date: October 30, 2024
Time: 8 am Hong Kong Time (Oct 31); 7 pm Central Time; 8 pm Eastern Time; 5 pm Pacific Time
Speaker: Stephan Ortmann, Hong Kong Metropolitan University
Discussant: Lynette Ong, University of Toronto
Registration Required
With the introduction of the National Security Law, Hong Kong has been transformed into an illiberal authoritarian regime, creating a need to legitimize the new order. By analyzing the new Citizenship and Social Development curriculum, this paper aims to reveal the main narratives used to establish legitimacy. First and foremost, it will be shown that the new subject seeks to indoctrinate a certain truth that students are expected to accept. The main ideological claim to legitimacy rests on the legality of China’s control, leveraging Hong Kong’s strong belief in the rule of law. The envisioned performance of the new, less contentious regime is supposed to engender support for the executive-dominant system. Finally, despite the autocratization, the regime still clings to elements of the liberal order, such as asserted judicial independence and the supposed continued existence of political freedoms.
Speaker
Stephan Ortmann is assistant professor in the School of Arts and Social Sciences of Hong Kong Metropolitan University. He has worked on various issues related to political change and civil society in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Vietnam. His publications have appeared in many reputable journals including Asian Survey, Asian Affairs, Administration and Society, Asia Pacific Law Review, China Quarterly, Journal of Democracy, Government and Opposition, and Pacific Review. He is the author of Politics and Change in Singapore and Hong Kong: Containing Contention (Routledge, 2010) and of Environmental Governance in Vietnam: Institutional Reforms and Failures (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). He has also co-edited a volume with Mark R. Thompson titled China’s ‘Singapore Model’ and Authoritarian Learning (Routledge, 2020). Currently, he is co-editing a volume titled Hong Kong Politics after the National Security Law, which will be published by Routledge in the near future.
Discussant
Lynette Ong is the Distinguished Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Toronto. She has appointments at the Dept of Political Science and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She is a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Asia Society’s Center for China Analysis, and the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She is the author of Outsourcing Repression: Everyday State Power in Contemporary China (Oxford University Press, 2022), The Street and the Ballot Box: Interactions Between Social Movements and Electoral Politics in Authoritarian Contexts (Cambridge University Press, Elements Series in Contentious Politics, 2022), and Prosper or Perish: Credit and Fiscal Systems in Rural China (Cornell University Press, 2012).
More to Come
To Be Announced.