加強法定公營機構的認受性過程

How does the government strengthen the legitimacy of public authority? The author has used the case of the restructuring of the Land Development Corporation (LDC) to understand the re-legitimatization of public authority in Hong Kong. News archives and documents (1/1995-1/2007) have been used to analyze the institutional norms the government adopted to transform LDC into the Urban Renewal Authority (URA), and the outcomes for the URA in terms of its organizational structure, its performance and its mode of "urban renewal." This study found that (1) in response to demands from professionals, business associations, political elites and urban movements, the government mimicked both private enterprises and other public authorities to instil corporate governance values such as "transparent," "being monitored," "public representative," "communicative," "professional," "flexible" and "public interest-oriented"; and (2) the government sought to recouple the relationship between these institutional norms and the organization's activities though financial support, law amendment, programme monitoring, inter-departmental coordination and the introduction of a top-down consultative procedure in order to strengthen and regulate the new authority. Strengthening the URA has stabilised its project clearance process, but narrowed its mode of urban renewal to public-private partnership and failed to eliminate urban social conflicts. Based on an analysis of the recoupling process, this study brings out theoretical implications for understanding other public authorities and practical implications for urban development under URA.