| Legal mobilization has not occurred in every authoritarian regime. However, it happened after China resumed its sovereignty over Hong Kong in July 1997. Using post-colonial Hong Kong as a cases study, this dissertation examines why and how legal mobilization can arise under authoritarianism. Adopting historical institutionalism as the analytical framework, I argue that the process of the sovereignty transition produced a critical juncture during which a new legal opportunity structure was created and the legislature was weakened. On the one hand, the implementation of the Bill of Rights and the Basic Law together with the establishment of a final appellant court located in Hong Kong, created new legal opportunities for individuals to use the law to advance their interests. On the other hand, Beijing and the Tung Chee-hwa administration tightened the political opportunities available to pro-democracy politicians and civil society, by weakening the legislature and marginalizing their political influence in the legislature. This shift of political opportunities from the legislature to the judicial branch, combined with the historical legacies of a legal complex (consists of an independent and competent judiciary, an autonomous and organized legal profession, and government-funded legal aid), and the agency of liberal cause lawyers and rights advocacy groups, contributed to the rise of legal mobilization in post-colonial Hong Kong.My dissertation makes three contributions. First, it engages and contributes to the emerging literature on judicial politics under authoritarianism by arguing that historical legacies play an important role in the rise of legal mobilization and that legal mobilization in authoritarian regimes by no means unfolds as political authorities would wish. Second, it highlights the impact of different forms of authoritarianism on the mode of opposition mobilization. Third, through studying how liberal cause lawyers in Hong Kong used their expertise and networks to promote democratic changes and the difficulty they encountered, my dissertation informs the literature on the relationship between economic modernization and democratization, especially the role of the middle class. |
