Rethinking Contentious Politics in Hong Kong: Change and Continuity

Samson Yuen; Edmund W. Cheng

PDF(1267 KB)

Hong Kong Studies ›› 2018, Vol. 1 ›› Issue (1) : 7-25.

Rethinking Contentious Politics in Hong Kong: Change and Continuity

Samson Yuen and Edmund W. Cheng

Author information +

History +

Abstract

Despite sustaining enviable economic growth after its Handover to China, Hong Kong has witnessed an increasingly contentious society where citizens have continued to protest for their political freedoms. This article is an attempt to rethink the ways of studying popular contention in a subnational, hybrid context, focusing on the case of Hong Kong. How has Hong Kong’s long trajectory of popular protests, despite not being able to bring about institutional changes, reshaped the dynamics and contours of political participation? Departing from what we will identify as the structural– functionalist and neo-institutionalist approaches, we propose to deploy a bottom–up, movement-oriented approach—what we call the “movement field” approach—to identify how state, non-state and quasi-state actors interact to operate between different issues of activism, adopt various contentious practices, and transcend established boundaries of contention. We aim to identify new analytical levers for revealing the neglected dimensions of the city’s contentious politics and for identifying the interplay between their changes and continuities. Our aim is to reveal the impetus and mechanisms for social-political changes in an open society dictated by increasingly authoritarian protocols, and to offer new conceptual and methodological directions that might yield a more profound and nuanced understanding of contentious politics both in and beyond Hong Kong.

Cite this article

EndNote

Ris (Procite)

Bibtex

Download Citations

Samson Yuen and Edmund W. Cheng. Rethinking Contentious Politics in Hong Kong: Change and Continuity[J]. Hong Kong Studies. 2018, 1(1): 7-25

References

Bayat, Asef. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Print.
Bennett, W. Lance. “The Personalization of Politics: Political Identity, Social Media, and Changing Patterns of Participation.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 644.1 (2012): 20–39. Print.
———, and Alexandra Segerberg. “The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics.” Information, Communication and Society 15.5 (2010): 739–68. Print.
Bourdieu, Pierre. “The Political Field, the Social Science Field, and the Journalistic Field.” Bourdieu and the Journalistic Field. Ed. Rodney Benson and Erik Neveu. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005. 48–63. Print.
Breaugh, Martin. The Plebeian Experience: A Discontinuous History of Political Freedom. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. Print.
Burawoy, Michael. “The Critical Turn to Public Sociology.” Critical Sociology 31.3 (2005): 313–26. Print.
Carroll, John M. Edge of Empires: Chinese Elites and British Colonials in Hong Kong. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Print.
Chan, Chris King Chi, Chan, S. S. Y., and Tang, L. “Reflecting on Social Movement Unionism in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the 2013 Dockworkers’ Strike.” Journal of Contemporary Asia. Forthcoming.
Chan Chung-hong, and King-wa Fu. “The Relationship Between Cyberbalkanization and Opinion Polarization: Time-Series Analysis on Facebook Pages and Opinion Polls During the Hong Kong Occupy Movement and the Associated Debate on Political Reform.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. Forthcoming.
Chan, Elaine, and Joseph Chan. “Liberal Patriotism in Hong Kong.” Journal of Contemporary China 23.89 (2014): 952–70. Print.
Chan, Ming K., and Alvin Y. So, eds. Crisis and Transformation in China’s Hong Kong. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, 2002. Print.
Cheng, Edmund W. “Street Politics in a Hybrid Regime: The Diffusion of Political Activism in Post-colonial Hong Kong.” The China Quarterly 226 (2016): 383–406. Print.
———, and Wai-yin Chan. “Explaining Spontaneous Occupation: Antecedents, Contingencies and Space in the Umbrella Movement.” Social Movement Studies 16.2 (2017): 222–39. Print.
———, and Shu-yun Ma. “Heritage Conservation through Private Donation: The Case of Dragon Garden in Hong Kong.” International Journal of Heritage Studies 15.6 (2009): 511–28. Print.
Cheng, Joseph Yu-shek. “The Emergence of Radical Politics in Hong Kong: Causes and Impact.” China Review 14.1 (2014): 199–232. Print.
Cheung, Anthony. “Hong Kong’s Post-1997 Institutional Crisis: Problems of Governance and Institutional Incompatibility.” Journal of East Asian Studies 5.1 (2005): 135–67. Print.
Chiu, Stephen W. K., and Tai Lok Lui. The Dynamics of Social Movements in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001. Print.
Degolyer, Michael E., and Janet Lee Scott, “The Myth of Political Apathy in Hong Kong.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 547.1 (1996): 68–78. Print.
Fong, Brian C.H. “State-Society Conflicts under Hong Kong’s Hybrid Regime: Governing Coalition Building and Civil Society Challenges.” Asian Survey 53 (2013): 854–82. Print.
Gitlin, Todd. Occupy Nation: The Roots, the Spirit, and the Promise of Occupy Wall Street. New York: Harper Collins, 2012. Print.
Goodwin, Jeff, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polletta. “Emotional Dimensions of Social Movements.” The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Ed. David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi. Oxford: Blackwell, 2004. 413–32. Print.
Hall, Peter A., and Rosemary C. R. Taylor. “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms.” Political Studies 44.5 (1996): 936–57. Print.
Hung Ho-fung, and Iam-chong Ip. “Hong Kong’s Democratic Movement and the Making of China’s Offshore Civil Society.” Asian Survey 52.3 (2011): 504–27. Print.
Kaeding, Malte Philipp. “The Rise of ‘Localism’ in Hong Kong.” Journal of Democracy 28.1 (2017): 157–71. Print.
King, Ambrose Yeo-chi. “Administrative Absorption of Politics in Hong Kong: Emphasis on the Grassroots Level.” Asian Survey 15.5 (1975): 422–39. Print.
Ku, Agnes S. “Making Heritage in Hong Kong: A Case Study of the Central Police Station Compound.” The China Quarterly 202 (2010): 381–99. Print.
———. “The ‘Public’ up Against the State: Narrative Cracks and Credibility Crisis in Postcolonial Hong Kong.” Theory, Culture & Society 18.1 (2001): 121–44. Print.
Kuan Hsin-chi. “Escape from Politics: Hong Kong’s Predicament of Political Development?” International Journal of Public Administration 21.10 (1998): 1423–48. Print.
———, and Lau Siu-Kai. “Between Liberal Autocracy and Democracy: Democratic Legitimacy in Hong Kong.” Democratization 9.4 (2002): 58–76. Print.
Lam Wai-man. Understanding the Political Culture of Hong Kong: The Paradox of Activism and Depoliticization. Armonk: ME Sharpe, 2004. Print.
Lau Siu-kai. Society and Politics in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1984. Print.
———, and Hsin-Chi Kuan. “The Attentive Spectators: Political Participation of the Hong Kong Chinese.” East Asia 14.1 (1995): 3–24. Print.
Lee, Francis L. F., and Joseph M. Chan. “Digital Media Activities and Mode of Participation in a Protest Campaign: The Case of the Umbrella Movement.” Information, Communication and Society 19.1 (2016): 4–22. Print.
———. “Making Sense of Participation: The Political Culture of Pro-Democracy Demonstrators in Hong Kong.” The China Quarterly 193 (2008): 84–101. Print.
———. Media, Social Mobilization, and the Pro-democracy Protest Movement in Post-Handover Hong Kong: The Power of a Critical Event. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Lui Tai-lok. “Pressure Group Politics in Hong Kong.” Political Participation in Hong Kong: Theoretical Issues and Historical Legacy. Ed. Joseph Y.S. Cheng. Hong Kong: Hong Kong City University Press, 1999. 149–73. Print.
———, and Stephen W. K. Chiu. “Governance Crisis in Post-1997 Hong Kong: A Political Economy Perspective.” China Review 7.2 (2007): 1–34. Print.
Ma Ngok. “Civil Society in Self-Defense: The Struggle against National Security Legislation in Hong Kong.” Journal of Contemporary China 14.44 (2005): 465–82. Print.
———. “The Making of a Corporatist State in Hong Kong: The Road to Sectoral Intervention.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 46.2 (2016): 247–66. Print.
———. Political Development in Hong Kong: State, Political Society, and Civil Society. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007. Print.
———. “Value Changes and Legitimacy Crisis in Post-Industrial Hong Kong.” Asian Survey 51.4 (2011): 683–712. Print.
McAdam, Doug, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer N. Zald, eds. Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Framings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print.
———, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly. Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Print.
Ortmann, Stephan. Politics and Change in Singapore and Hong Kong: Containing Contention. New York: Routledge, 2009. Print.
Scott, Ian. “The Disarticulation of Hong Kong’s Post-Handover Political System.” The China Journal 43 (2000): 29–53. Print.
Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Print.
Sing Ming. “The Legitimacy Problem and Democratic Reform in Hong Kong.” Journal of Contemporary China 15.48 (2006): 517–32. Print.
———. “Mobilization for Political Change: The Pro-Democracy Movement in Hong Kong, 1980s–1994.” The Dynamics of Social Movement in Hong Kong. Ed. Lui Tai lok, and Stephen W.K. Chiu. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2001. 21–54. Print.
Snow, David A., and Dana M. Moss. “Protest on The Fly: Toward A Theory of Spontaneity in the Dynamics of Protest and Social Movements.” American Sociological Review 79.6 (2014): 1122–43. Print.
Tarrow, Sidney. Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action, and Mass Politics in the Modern State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Print.
Tilly, Charles. Contentious Performances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print.
Veg, Sebastian. “Creating a Textual Public Space: Slogans and Texts from Hong Kong's Umbrella Movement.” The Journal of Asian Studies 75.3 (2016): 673–702. Print.
———. “The Rise of ‘Localism’ and Civic Identity in Post-Handover Hong Kong: Questioning the Chinese Nation-state.” The China Quarterly 230 (2017): 323–47. Print.
Wu Jieh-min 吳介民.“The Triumph of the Umbrella Movement: Hong Kong's Political Existence [傘運成果——香港的政治存在].”Initium 端傳媒. 16 Oct.2015. Web. 26 Nov. 2017.
Xia Ying. “Collective Action Frame and Cultural Context: A Study of the Anti-Express-Rail-Link Movement in Hong Kong.” Chinese Journal of Sociology 2.2 (2016): 300–23. Print.
Yuen, Samson, and Edmund W. Cheng. “Neither Repression nor Concession? A Regime’s Attrition against Mass Protests.” Political Studies 65.3 (2017): 611–30. Print.