Governance of built-heritage in a restrictive political system: The involvement of non-governmental stakeholders

Abstract

Built-heritage conservation has increasingly become Hong Kong people's urgent concern since the years leading up to the territory's change of sovereignty from Great Britain to China, under political rules in which development takes priority over conservation. Built-heritage is a symbol of cultural identity and thus Hong Kong people's awareness of the importance of preserving them (Henderson, 2008). NGOs' sense of urgency in getting involved in built-heritage conservation also stems from operating within a political system which Scott (2010) describes as having a restrictive policy-making process, lacking in responsiveness to public demands and expectations. NGOs have three basic functions, namely, service provision, advocacy, and monitoring. Two case studies are used to illustrate these functions. The findings indicate that NGOs are most intensely involved in advocacy. NGOs involved in service provision have been selected through tightly-controlled processes. NGOs' monitoring activities were very limited. I argue that NGOs' role in built-heritage conservation is limited due to the restrictive political system. However, NGOs demonstrated insistent and resilient opposition to any top-down approach to decision-making is a sign that leads to the belief that despite of and because of the nature of the political system, NGOs' involvement in built-heritage is not only likely to intensify but also expand with government increasing the openness of the policy process to contain public pressure.

Applying the MOA (motivation-opportunity-ability) model for the evaluation of residents' participation in built heritage rehabilitation: the case of Constantine

“…Besides motivational factors, residents may be encouraged by external incentives from other heritage stakeholders. These incentives constitute opportunities factors, like legislative and administrative facilitation (Tosun, 1999;Aas et al, 2005;Yau, 2010aYau, , 2010bHung et al, 2011), the existence of information channels (Aas et al, 2005;Kersten et al, 2015), economic incentives (Yau, 2010a(Yau, , 2010b, non-governmental organisations' (NGOs') support (Hung, 2015) and the competence of building professionals (Yau, 2010a(Yau, , 2010b.…”

Identifying the Critical Stakeholders for the Sustainable Development of Architectural Heritage of Tourism: From the Perspective of China

“…Therefore, AHTs are of great historical and cultural value [6,7]. Nowadays, the economic value of AHT has also been explored and, thus, it obtained great superiority to development in many cities [8][9][10].…”

Sustainable development of heritage conservation and tourism: A Hong Kong case study on colonial heritage

“…Also, one can easily find BB pellets from war games, political slogans and other graffiti, and religious objects that make the sites look very shabby and untidy. There has been no proper government response to these "guerrilla farming" activities (Hung, 2015(Hung, , 2017(Hung, , 2018 Through "signaling," (Bertacchini, Saccone, & Santagata, 2011) conservation status (say by heritage listing) can promote tourism. But a certain degree of sustained tourism input is required to promote conservation.…”