The Umbrella Movement

The Umbrella Movement
Author: Ngok Ma
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Total Pages: 359
Release: 2019-05-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9048535247

Download The Umbrella Movement Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

This volume examines the most spectacular struggle for democracy in post-handover Hong Kong. Bringing together scholars with different disciplinary focuses and comparative perspectives from mainland China, Taiwan and Macau, one common thread that stitches the chapters is the use of first-hand data collected through on-site fieldwork. This study unearths how trajectories can create favourable conditions for the spontaneous civil resistance despite the absence of political opportunities and surveys the dynamics through which the protestors, the regime and the wider public responses differently to the prolonged contentious space. *The Umbrella Movement: Civil Resistance and Contentious Space in Hong Kong* offers an informed analysis of the political future of Hong Kong and its relations with the authoritarian sovereignty as well as sheds light on the methodological challenges and promises in studying modern-day protests.

The Appearing Demos

The Appearing Demos
Author: Laikwan Pang
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2020-02-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0472037684

Download The Appearing Demos Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

As the waves of Occupy movements gradually recede, we soon forget the political hope and passions these events have offered. Instead, we are increasingly entrenched in the simplified dichotomies of Left and Right, us and them, hating others and victimizing oneself. Studying Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement, which might be the largest Occupy movement in recent years, The Appearing Demos urges us to re-commit to democracy at a time when democracy is failing on many fronts and in different parts of the world. The 79-day-long Hong Kong Umbrella Movement occupied major streets in the busiest parts of the city, creating tremendous inconvenience to this city famous for capitalist order and efficiency. It was also a peaceful collective effort of appearance, and it was as much a political event as a cultural one. The urge for expressing an independent cultural identity underlined both the Occupy movement and the remarkably rich cultural expressions it generated. While understanding the specificity of Hong Kong’s situations, The Appearing Demos also comments on some global predicaments we are facing in the midst of neoliberalism and populism. It directs our attention from state-based sovereignty to city-based democracy, and emphasizes the importance of participation and cohabitation. The book also examines how the ideas of Hannah Arendt are useful to those happenings much beyond the political circumstances that gave rise to her theorization. The book pays particular attention to the actual intersubjective experiences during the protest. These experiences are local, fragile, and sometimes inarticulable, therefore resisting rationality and debates, but they define the fullness of any individual, and they also make politics possible. Using the Umbrella Movement as an example, this book examines the “freed” political agents who constantly take others into consideration in order to guarantee the political realm as a place without coercion and discrimination. In doing so, Pang Laikwan demonstrates how politics means neither to rule nor to be ruled, and these movements should be defined by hope, not by goals.

Take Back Our Future

Take Back Our Future
Author: Ching Kwan Lee
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 270
Release: 2019-11-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1501740938

Download Take Back Our Future Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In a comprehensive and theoretically novel analysis, Take Back Our Future unveils the causes, processes, and implications of the 2014 seventy-nine-day occupation movement in Hong Kong known as the Umbrella Movement. The essays presented here by a team of experts with deep local knowledge ask: how and why had a world financial center known for its free-wheeling capitalism transformed into a hotbed of mass defiance and civic disobedience? Take Back Our Future argues that the Umbrella Movement was a response to China's internal colonization strategies—political disenfranchisement, economic subsumption, and identity reengineering—in post-handover Hong Kong. The contributors outline how this historic and transformative movement formulated new cultural categories and narratives, fueled the formation and expansion of civil society organizations and networks both for and against the regime, and spurred the regime's turn to repression and structural closure of dissent. Although the Umbrella Movement was fraught with internal tensions, Take Back Our Future demonstrates that the movement politicized a whole generation of people who had no prior experience in politics, fashioned new subjects and identities, and awakened popular consciousness.

The Economic Roots of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

The Economic Roots of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong
Author: Louis Augustin-Jean
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 169
Release: 2018-02-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1351255495

Download The Economic Roots of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In the autumn of 2014, thousands of people, young and educated in their majority, occupied the chief business district and seat of the government in Hong Kong. The protest, known as the Umbrella Movement, called for ‘genuine democracy’, as well as a fairer social and economic system. The book aims to provide a dynamic framework to explain why socioeconomic forces converged to produce such a situation. Examining increasing inequality, rising prices and stagnating incomes, it stresses the role of economic and social factors, as opposed to the domestic political and constitutional issues often assumed to be the root cause behind the protests. It first argues that globalization and the increasing influence of China’s economy in Hong Kong has weighted on salaries. Second, it shows that the oligopolistic nature of the local economy has generated rents, which have reinforced inequality. The book demonstrates that the younger generation, which is still finding its place in society, has been particularly affected by these phenomena, especially with social mobility at a low point. Offering a new approach to studying the Umbrella Movement, this book will appeal to students and scholars interested in Hong Kong's political landscape, as well Chinese politics more broadly.

Securitization of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong

Securitization of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong
Author: Cora Y.T. Hui
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2019-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0429766580

Download Securitization of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

In recent years, the city many hoped would help democratize China has instead become a research setting in which to study China’s increasing intolerance of dissent. Since Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, China’s treatment of Hong Kong could be divided into three stages: non-intervention, intervention, and securitization. If the July 1 march in 2003 is a watershed that marked Beijing’s change from non-intervention to intervention, this book suggests that the Umbrella Movement in 2014 is another watershed that marked Beijing’s change from intervention to securitization. This book is a theoretically driven case study of the Umbrella Movement, a massive sit-in that paralyzed key business and retail districts for 79 days in Hong Kong in 2014. Many Hongkongers believe that they have the right to a fair election of the chief executive, and Beijing’s insistence on vetting candidates prompted the outbreak of the Umbrella Movement. Drawing insights from the securitization theory and fear appeal literature, the book proposes the framework of “security appeal.” It argues that the outbreak of the Umbrella Movement resulted from a premature use of hard repression, that is, before the government convinced the general public that the Umbrella Movement was a threat. The eventual successful securitization entails a general acceptance of the threatening nature of the Umbrella Movement and agreement with its crackdown. This book concludes that one of the consequences of the securitization of the Umbrella Movement is Beijing’s eventual switch to the policy of “patriotocracy” – a system that allocates power and resources based on one’s professed patriotism – in lieu of One Country, Two Systems. The policy implications and theoretical and methodological contributions of this book will be of interest to scholars and students of security studies; Chinese politics; and various social science disciplines, including political science, psychology, criminology, and sociology.

Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven

Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven
Author: Ming-sho Ho
Publisher: Temple University Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2019-01-25
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1439917078

Download Challenging Beijing's Mandate of Heaven Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Analyzing the dynamics of two recent nonviolent, student-led protests in light of China's growth and power

Law and Politics of the Taiwan Sunflower and Hong Kong Umbrella Movements

Law and Politics of the Taiwan Sunflower and Hong Kong Umbrella Movements
Author: Brian Christopher Jones
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2017-03-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 131715715X

Download Law and Politics of the Taiwan Sunflower and Hong Kong Umbrella Movements Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Rarely do acts of civil disobedience come in such grand fashion as Taiwan’s Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. The two protests came in regions and jurisdictions that many have underestimated as regards furthering notions of political speech, democratisation, and testing the limits of authority. This book breaks down these two movements and explores their complex legal and political significance. The collection brings together some of Asia’s, and especially Taiwan and Hong Kong’s, most prolific writers, many of whom are internationally recognised experts in their respective fields, to address the legal and political significance of both movements, including the complex questions they posed as regards democracy, rule of law, authority, and freedom of speech. Given that occupational type protests have become a prominent method for protesters to make their cases to both citizens and governments, exploring the legalities of these significant protests and establishing best practices will be important to future movements, wherever they may transpire. With this in mind, the book does not stop at implications for Taiwan and Hong Kong, but talks about its subject matter from a comparative, international perspective.

Umbrellas in Bloom

Umbrellas in Bloom
Author: Jason Y. Ng
Publisher: Black Smith Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-12-07
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9789881376534

Download Umbrellas in Bloom Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The Umbrella Movement put Hong Kong on the world map and elevated this docile, money-minded Asian island to a model for pro-democracy campaigns across the globe. Umbrellas in Bloom is the first book available in English to chronicle this history-making event, written by a bestselling author and columnist based on his firsthand experience at the main protest sites. Jason Y. Ng takes a no-holds-barred, fly-on-the-wall approach to covering politics. His latest offering steps through the 79-day struggle, from the firing of the first shot of tear gas by riot police to the evacuation of the last protester from the downtown encampments. It is all you need to know about the occupy movement: who took part in it, why it happened, how it transpired, and what it did and did not achieve.

Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement

Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement
Author: Francis L. F. Lee
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 159
Release: 2018-05-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315405881

Download Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

The Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong caught the world’s attention and imagination at the end of 2014. The 79-day occupation campaign took on some of the characteristics of the recent wave of large-scale protest movements around the world, including the prominent roles played by the media – both conventional and digital – in the mobilization and communication processes of the movement. This edited volume, Media, Mobilization and the Umbrella Movement, brings together nine contributions which examine various aspects of the media-movement nexus, including the power of televised images to mobilize people, the role of social media in the insurgent public sphere, young activists’ social media strategies, media influence on citizens’ understanding of civil disobedience, the government’s response to digital media tactics, public discourses about the rule of law, and local and foreign media coverage of the movement. We believe that this high-quality collection can not only enhance our understanding of the Umbrella Movement, but also facilitate and trigger more research and dialogue comparing the Umbrella Movement with other similar protest movements around the world. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Chinese Journal of Communication.

Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era

Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era
Author: Francis L.F. Lee
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190856807

Download Media and Protest Logics in the Digital Era Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Digital and social media are increasingly integrated into the dynamics of protest movements around the world. They strengthen the mobilization power of movements, extend movement networks, facilitate new modes of protest participation, and give rise to new protest formations. Meanwhile, conventional media remains an important arena where protesters and their targets contest for public support. This book examines the role of the media -- understood as an integrated system comprised of both conventional media institutions and digital media platforms -- in the formation and dynamics of the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. For 79 days in 2014, Hong Kong became the focus of international attention due to a public demonstration for genuine democracy that would become known as the Umbrella Movement. During this time, twenty percent of the local population would join the demonstration, the most large-scale and sustained act of civil disobedience in Hong Kong's history -- and the largest public protest campaign in China since the 1989 student movement in Beijing. On the surface, this movement was not unlike other large-scale protest movements that have occurred around the world in recent years. However, it was distinct in how bottom-up processes evolved into a centrally organized, programmatic movement with concrete policy demands. In this book, Francis L. F. Lee and Joseph M. Chan connect the case of the Umbrella Movement to recent theorizations of new social movement formations. Here, Lee and Chan analyze how traditional mass media institutions and digital media combined with on-the-ground networks in such a way as to propel citizen participation and the evolution of the movement as a whole. As such, they argue that the Umbrella Movement is important in the way it sheds light on the rise of digital-media-enabled social movements, the relationship between digital media platforms and legacy media institutions, the power and limitations of such occupation protests and new "action logics," and the continual significance of old protest logics of resource mobilization and collective action frames. Through a combination of protester surveys, population surveys, analyses of news contents and social media activities, this book reconstructs a rich and nuanced account of the Umbrella Movement, providing insight into numerous issues about the media-movement nexus in the digital era.