Mass Political Culture in Macau: Continuity and Change

Abstract

Political culture in this study is defined as citizens’ subjective orientations toward politics. Based on two surveys of Macau residents conducted in 1991 and 1999 respectively, this article compares citizen concerns about public affairs, conceptions of democracy, orientation toward political participation, and political efficacy in the two periods. The findings indicate that there are both continuity and change in Macau’s political culture. As in the early 1990s, the current political culture is a mixture of traditional Chinese values and Western democratic values. Yet the overall democratic consciousness of the populace has increased, with an emphasis on the value of elections. Macau is in a transition from subject to participant orientation.