Hong Kong Deliberative ForumBack
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| Background | Details of the Forum | Preparation work before the Forum | Research Results | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Background
The “Hong Kong Deliberative Forum” is jointly organized by Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) and the University of Hong Kong Public Opinion Programme (HKUPOP). It aims to encourage the public to deliberate through the discussion of complex and controversial public issues. The forum provides a chance for the public to gain more in-depth knowledge of the details and discussion points on the mechanism for filling vacancies in the Legislative Council. The concept of this activity comes from the idea of “Deliberative Polling” created by the Stanford University in the US. 100 Hong Kong citizens are randomly selected to attend the deliberative forum. They listen to both affirmative and negative opinions from respective guests, and are given the opportunity to ask the guests questions on the spot. The organizer analyze the change in public opinions collected before and after the debate. For the background information of Stanford University's “Deliberative Polling”, please refer to Deliberative Polling Page. The activity is divided into two parts, which includes a representative sample of no less than 1,000 public people, and 100 people are invited to attend a debate entitled “Hong Kong Deliberative Forum”. For the details and results of the public sample, please access the page here. |
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Research Team Members
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Special thanks to the following organizations/individuals who have provided support in organizing the captioned deliberative forum (in no particular order): Alison Lam, Manson Kuok, Timmy Chia, Keavin Tai |
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Details of the forum Details of the “Hong Kong Deliberative Forum” are as follows:
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Preparation Work before the Forum
The Public Opinion Programme officially started the invitation process 4 weeks before the Forum. A Hong Kong-wide random telephone survey has been conducted between 11 to 31 August 2011. In the first round of calls, 300 public persons show interest to attend the activity. This is followed by the second round of calls by the Public Opinion Programme. The calls are made according to the interviewees' age group (ie. 18 to 29, 30 to 49 and 50 or above) and their self-claimed social strata (summarized into upper, middle and lower class) to ensure participants are representative of the public. At 6 September 2011, there is a confirmation list of around 120 persons. Radio Television Hong Kong then mailed or emailed the invitation letter for the debate, the first round survey and the background information of the Asian Games bid to each participant, which include: In between 7 and 8 September 2011, the Public Opinion Programme conducted the third round of telephone follow-up. Finally around 100 participants confirm that they will attend the debate.
On the date of the debate, the organizer asks each participant to arrive at the venue by 9 am and hand in the completed first round survey questionnaire. During the group discussion in the middle of the debate, the organizer asks each participant to fill in the second round survey questionnaire, which has the exact same content with the first one. The aim is to analyze the change of citizens' opinion before and after the debate. The survey is jointly designed by the Public Opinion Programme and Radio Television Hong Kong. All the operations, data collection and analysis are done independently by the Public Opinion Programme without the interference of any other party. The survey questions are as follows:
Q1. 5 Legislative councilors resigned in 2010 leading to a de-facto universal suffrage in Hong Kong. They were re-elected in the by-election. There have been opinions in the need of amending the law to prevent similar situation from happening; at the same time there are opinions saying that it is alright for legislative councilors to resign and be re elected as a legitimate means to pass on political message without having suffrage. Do you think the government should restrict resigning Members from participating in any by-election in the same term or to maintain the status quo, that is, to have by-election ?
Q2. After considering all facts, to what extent do you agree or disagree to enact laws restricting resigning members from participating in any by-election in the same term?
Q3. After considering all facts, to what extent do you agree or disagree to fill up the casual vacancies arising from death, serious illness or other involuntary circumstances?Q4. To what extent do you agree or disagree using the following methods to deal with the problem of Legislative Councilor’s resignation, excluding vacancies left by Legislative Councilors’ death, ill-health or other non-voluntary reasons: a) Leave the seat vacant as it is without having any replacement b)To have a replacement mechanism using the same candidate list, followed by leaving the seat vacant when the list is exhausted c) To have a replacement mechanism using the same candidate list followed by a precedence list system d) Other methods (Please specify):： |
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Research results
A total of 85 citizens attended the debate on that day. 84 of them completed and submitted the first and second round surveys. Using the 84 persons as sample, the Public Opinion Programme conducted the analysis and announced the research results on the spot. |
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Other Matters Radio Television Hong Kong has recorded the entire debate and produced a radio programme. It was broadcasted at 5 to 8 pm, 13 September 2011 at Radio 1. |
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Activity photos |
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| Background | Details of the Forum | Preparation work before the Forum | Research Results | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
