Transgressing taboos: the relational dynamics of claim radicalization in Hong Kong and Thailand

ABSTRACT

Claims made during mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and Thailand in 2020 became increasingly transgressive. Localist demands and calls for the reform of the monarchy, respectively, violated conventional political norms in these two hybrid regimes. This paper examines the dynamics of opposition discursive radicalization during ongoing autocratization. Observational data and protest event analysis are employed to assess the scaling up of claims-making and its relationship to protest size and group solidarity. The paper argues that radicalization can best be understood relationally, between a hybrid regime, on the one hand, and moderates and radicals in the opposition, on the other. It identifies the following three points of convergence that lead to similar protest trajectories in both cases: the marginalization of moderates along with their gatekeeping role of transgressive discourses; the creation of digitally enabled protest networks that facilitated mass mobilization and claims diffusion; and the intensification of protest policing that provoked a departure from reformist to revolutionary claims. The argument offered here shows similarities to but also nuanced differences from the repression literature and casts doubt on the assumptions about the demobilizing impact of autocratization.

KEYWORDS:

• Social movements
• discursive radicalization
• autocratization
• repression
• relational dynamics
• Hong Kong protests
• Thailand protests

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work is supported by grants from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (Ref No. 11605820 and 11600921)

Notes on contributors

Mark R. Thompson

Mark R. Thompson is director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre, and professor of politics at the Department of Public and International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong. His research focues on autocracy, democracy, and national leadership in Northeast and Southeast Asia.

Edmund W. Cheng

Edmund W. Cheng is an associate professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include contentious politics, political communication, international conflicts, and research methods.