Town Talk
Enhancing the 'eyes and ears' of the colonial state in British Hong Kong, 1950s-1975
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5118706 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Florence Mok (0000-0002-3577-5127, Nanyang Technological University , Singapore, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 95 |
| Issue | 268 |
| Pages | 287-308 |
| Publication date | 2022-05-12 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Historical Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0950-3471 • E-ISSN: 1468-2281 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/hisres/htab039 |
| OpenAlex | W4212844645 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
This article offers a longer perspective on the origins and effectiveness of reforms of colonial governance in Hong Kong. It shows that the colonial state shifted from increasingly ineffective indirect rule to using a covert bureaucratic opinion poll, Town Talk, to assess public opinion. The article argues that this bureaucratic device increased the organizational capacity of the colonial state and, in so doing, enabled a constructed form of 'public opinion' to influence policy formulation in a state-controlled manner without democratization. This mechanism was used as an imperfect substitute for representative democracy. These reforms enhanced a 'non-political' sense of citizenship among the Hong Kong Chinese but failed to bridge a communication gap between an unelected government and the people over whom it ruled
Bureaucracy · Citizenship · Colonialism · Corporate governance · Covert · Democracy · Democratization · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Language change · Management · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Sociology · State (computer science) · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law · Public Administration
| Citations per year | 2.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |