ABSTRACT
The 2019 Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill protests in Hong Kong culminated in diverse forms of political participation, but as yet little attention has been paid to the impact on the pro-democracy movement at the micro-level. This paper explores pro-democracy protesters’ evolving views of politics and their new modes of political participation during and after the protests. Using interview data, this paper shows that participants in the pro-democracy movement have increasingly recognized the inseparable relationship between everyday life and political life. This paper examines two forms of everyday political participation – political consumption and digital activism – that have been widely deployed by protesters to express political claims, circulate political information, and garner support from local and international audiences. While the politicization of everyday life provided impetus to street demonstrations in 2019, it has continued despite the adoption of a wider scope of repressive measures by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments after the protests. Through the case of Hong Kong, this paper demonstrates how, in an authoritarian context, everyday resistance is applied to struggle for regime change and democratization.
Acknowledgements
Gratitude is owed to Robert Shepherd and the anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
34 The semi-democratic regime in Hong Kong has been characterized in various ways, such as “liberal authoritarian” (Case Citation2008), “soft authoritarian” (So Citation2002), “civil oligarchy” (Cheng Citation2016), and in-between liberal authoritarianism and electoral authoritarianism (Fong Citation2017).
35 This is evident in the five demands put forward by protesters during the Anti-ELAB protests. The last demand initially asked the HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam to resign. Later, protesters reframed this demand as a broader quest for regime change, demanding the implementation of genuine popular elections through which the Chief Executive and all members of the Legislative Council would be directly elected without having any thresholds imposed by the Chinese government in the nomination process (Lee et al. Citation2020). This shows how everyday resistance aims for a different set of political goals in a non-liberal-democratic context.
37 For more details about our interviewees, see the appendix.
41 Interview on June 15, 2020.
42 Interview on June 17, 2020.
43 That is, capital from Chinese-domiciled enterprises. See Wang-Kaeding and Kaeding Citation2017.
45 Interview on June 14, 2020.
47 Police fired tear gas in many different districts of the city, causing much inconvenience for ordinary citizens. See Cheng et al. Citationforthcoming.
49 Interview on May 17, 2020.
50 Interview on June 15, 2020.
51 Interview on May 17, 2020.
56 Interview on June 14, 2020.
57 Interview on June 14, 2020.
65 The pro-democracy protesters identified themselves with the colour yellow, in contrast to the colour blue adopted by the pro-establishment of pro-China citizens.
70 Interview on June 14, 2020.
71 Interview on June 3, 2020.
72 Interview on June 20, 2020.
73 Interview on May 17, 2020.
81 Interview on July 2, 2020.
82 Interview on May 17, 2020.
84 “Be water” is a motto borrowed from martial arts movie star Bruce Lee, expressing the need to be flexible and creative in mobilizations.
85 Interview on May 26, 2020.
86 Interview on June 14, 2020.
87 Interview on June 15, 2020.
88 Interview on June 14, 2020.
90 Tang and Yuen Citation2020. We wish to thank Gary Tang and Samson Yuen for sharing their original data with us.
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Funding
Michelle Cheng is a recipient of the Research Grants Council Postdoctoral Fellowship Scheme (PDFS2021-8H01) funded by the University Grants Committee.
Notes on contributors
Thomas Yun-tong Tang
Thomas Yun-tong Tang received his PhD from the University of Manchester and is now an independent researcher.
Michelle W. T. Cheng
Michelle W.T. Cheng received her PhD from the University of Hong Kong and is now a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Graduate School at the Education University of Hong Kong.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0357-4099
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