Does politicized public service appointment strengthen political control over policy advice? The case of Hong Kong, China

Expanding the analytical scope of tools for advancing representative bureaucracy: A comparative analysis of Hong Kong and Macau

“…There are also appointment of POs with hybrid careers across public and private sectors, and across political and professional sectors. 15 Politicized appointment of senior officials within the bureaucracy have opened up the policy advising processes to new actors and motivated civil-servant-turned political appointees to learn how to respond to political pressure from the society (W. Li, 2022).…”

“…The other two CEs are career civil servants from the elitist Administrative Officer grade responsible for formulating policies. Under the Principal Official Accountability System (POAS) (later retitled as Political Appointment System, or PAS), these CEs nominated many “outsiders,” namely business, professional and political elites from outside the government to head policy bureaus and departments, in order to bring in fresh ideas that offer “politically anticipatory perspective, proactive consensus building, long-term planning, and subject knowledge in policymaking,” which civil servants often could not provide (W. Li, 2022, p. 12).…”

“…In colonial Hong Kong (of Britain), the legislature had been weak and civil servants dominated policy processes. In post-colonial times, even with a democratizing legislature and politicized public service appointment, civil service values have been influential in policymaking in the executive-led system (Burns & Li, 2015; W. Li, 2022).…”