Thirteen - Community development and class in the context of an East Asian productivist welfare regime

Summary

Introduction

This chapter argues that class analyses have been underdeveloped in community development studies in Hong Kong and that this has impacted on the ways in which community development services have developed. This paucity of class analysis is revealed through the findings of a study that the author conducted to exploring community development service organisations’ approaches to service planning and delivery. In this chapter, the context of Hong Kong as a productivist welfare regime will be introduced to provide background for the subsequent discussion. Finally, the wider implications of these analytical lacunae will be considered.

Hong Kong as a productivist welfare regime

Hong Kong has been undergoing a form of economic globalisation, which has been restructuring the economy away from export-oriented manufacturing to service domination over the past two decades (Chiu et al, 1997). This process has testified to the government's de facto support for the financial and commercial complex and its associated neglect of manufacturing industries (Chiu, 1994). Concomitantly, continual inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) to the finance and producer service sectors have reinforced the dominance of the financial sector and of Hong Kong as the key regional finance centre. Together with the growing importance of the real estate industry, the trade, finance and tourist industries have become the four main sectors of the economy (Enright et al, 1999). In addition, the economy of Hong Kong is renowned for its domination by giant corporations in most sectors (see Castells et al, 1990). For example, giant developers in the real estate industry and the giant commercial banks are powerful players, and they maintain close relationships with the government. Such state–business relations have, in fact, mediated these deindustrialisation processes (Chiu et al, 1997).

Following the end of the colonial era in 1997, the Basic Law, under the reign of China, constituted an executive-led government of the Special Administrative Region (SAR). The state's executive was to be chosen by a group of 1,200 electors by 2014: a group in which major business interests are overrepresented. The legislative council operates under an electoral arrangement through which the interests of businesses and related professionals are protected.