Welfare or politics? A survey experiment of political discontent and support for redistribution in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study examines support for redistribution in the developed economy of Hong Kong from three theoretical perspectives: self-interest, ideology, and social affinity. The analysis uses a between-subjects randomized vignette experiment to explore the interplay between welfare and politics; in particular, it addresses whether people express opposition to a welfare policy to convey political discontent even if they otherwise support the policy. Drawing on a survey of university students (N = 1245), the study finds that self-interest and ideology, and specifically perceptions of social mobility and individual responsibility, are strong predictors of support for redistribution. The vignette experiment provides evidence that politics indeed spills over into support for welfare policies. Respondents expressed less support for public housing if cued that the policy was associated with the government and were already dissatisfied with political leadership. The findings have implications for research on political support for redistribution and welfare policies.

Party Competition and Ideology in Hong Kong: A New Manifesto Coding Dataset

“…The unique combination of a non-partisan Chief Executive who has not been popularly elected and the sub-sovereignty of Hong Kong (separating sovereignty from the local polity) has the unintended side-effect of making the party system more competitive. It follows that the dynamics of party competition commonly found in democracies might also be observed in Hong Kong (Wong 2015).…”

“…Second, the effect of ideology is not consistently significant statistically (based on the choice of measures and time discussed in the previous paragraph). Hong Kong is commonly characterized as a hybrid regime with a "stunted party system," which precludes the possibility of a ruling party (Lau and Kuan 2002;Wong 2015). The head of the government, the Chief Executive, cannot be affiliated with any political party.…”

“…Under the proportional representation system used in legislative elections since 1997, voters usually have no problem voting strategically for another party to maximize the seats gained by their preferred camp. It is commonly believed that the pro-democracy camp used to enjoy a 60:40 edge (the so-called "golden ratio") in popular support in elections regardless of the intra-camp split (e.g., Ma 2007;Wong 2015). Although the recent rise of localists might be eroding the support enjoyed by traditional pro-democracy parties, this development seems to reinforce the non-ideological nature of politics instead of challenging it.…”

“…To demonstrate the prima facie validity of the MARPOR in Hong Kong, I apply the framework to examine the well-established pro-democracy/pro-Beijing divide. As discussed, the pro-democracy camp generally advocates more rapid democratization and puts a greater emphasis on human rights and freedom (Ma 2007;Wong 2017). Using the appropriate coding instructions from MARPOR, Figure 1 shows the share of all positive references to "democracy," "freedom," and "human rights" contained in each party's manifesto by political camp.…”

“…While the differences might seem unbridgeable, I have argued elsewhere that the very combination of these two characteristics makes Hong Kong a suitable case for inclusion into the MARPOR framework (Wong 2015). Under the "one country two systems" arrangement, Hong Kong is promised a high degree of autonomy and its own government formed by the local people.…”