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Political Culture, Participation and Communication: The Collapse of Consensus Politics and the Local Social Group System Money has taken precedence for far too long in all areas of decision-making in Macao. Money continues to mold the fate of the city, and the government lacks the vision, ambition, will and wisdom to change the situation.1 During the colonial period, Macao remained quiet and politically inactive, as characterized by the population’s general political indifference, the lack of political dialogue and the imbalance of power at the policy-­ making level. Nonetheless, the territory remained particularly stable, as any trouble was restrained by the mass political culture, consensus politics between the social elites and the governments, and informal political communication buttressed by a unique social group system. However, changes in Macao’s political culture after the handover have had a “chain-effect” on the traditional modes of political participation and political communication. In particular, the casino industry has had contradictory effects on Macao, which also reveal the inherent contradictions of the previous governance model.

Mass Political Culture and Political Participation In addition to the recent structural changes to the administration and Legislative Assembly, significant changes in Macao’s political culture and the pattern and level of political participation have occurred that have led to various situations that have broken the static harmony in the political arena. © The Author(s) 2017 Y. Hao et al., Political Economy of Macao since 1999, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3138-0_6

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Political culture refers to citizens’ perceptions of their political system and of their roles in the polity. According to Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, there are three types of political culture, namely, parochial, subject and participant cultures, which correspond with three types of mixed political cultures: the parochial-subject culture, the subject-participant culture and the parochial-participant culture. The political orientation of the different ethnic groups in Macao has changed over time. Consequently, the changing nature of political participation in Macao can be divided into three periods: 1984–1988, 1989–1999 and 1999 to the present. Before 1984, the Macanese had a participant political culture, whereas the Chinese masses displayed a relatively parochial orientation. The legislative elections provide a useful context for observing citizen participation in Macao. After the military coup in Portugal in April 1974, direct elections were introduced to the legislature in 1976 to provide a forum for citizen participation in Macao. Local Macanese actively participated in the ensuing elections and won four of the six directly elected seats in the Legislative Assembly in 1980. The first two Legislative Assemblies (1976–1984) were dominated by Macanese, who were involved in a power struggle with the government. Members of the Macanese elite, such as lawyers and Catholic leaders, oft