ABSTRACT
Taiwan and Hong Kong are polities that show the potential, and challenges, of democratic politics and constitutional governance in Chinese-speaking and culturally Chinese areas. In 2014, Taiwan's Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement (which grew out of the Occupy Central Movement) illustrated in particularly dramatic form the impact that real and perceived challenges from China have on constitutional development and democratic or pro-democracy politics. In the Hong Kong SAR, issues of democracy and constitutionalism often have drawn large groups of protesters to the streets, sometimes in demonstrations marking the anniversaries of the territory's 1 July 1997 reversion to China. The Sunflower Movement and the Occupy Central/Umbrella Movement marked what we might call the "revenge of political economy" in the democratic politics of Taiwan and Hong Kong. In a world where democratic politics often is about economic issues, Taiwan and Hong Kong have been relative outliers.
