Renewed British-led democratic reform from 1992 to ambivalence in public support for democratic reform

Comparative studies of countries in Asia, Southern Europe, and Latin America have confirmed that elites’ consensus on the rules of the game of a democratic polity is crucial for a democratic transition and consolidation (Mainwaring et al., 1992). In Hong Kong, democratization progressed slowly beginning in the mid-1980s, and resulted in a limited democracy in mid1997. Moreover, within few months after the widely publicized handover of the territory from Britain to China, the process was drastically reversed.