Understanding Frame Legitimacy in China: Environmental Protest Strategies and the Emergence of a "Science Frame"

• In Event: 474 - Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 05. Framing Processes

Abstract

This article examines the mechanisms of selected movement frames and rhetoric in three community environmental movements in Beijing, China using interview data, protest documents and recordings, and government statements. Previous studies show that movement frames function in a way for protesters to lessen political risk in authoritarian contexts. However, what is “safe” depends on what is “legitimate”, which relates to state interpretation. Chinese laws are often stringent, but there exists a “gray area” encompassing actions that may be legally or administratively banned but tacitly tolerated to varying degrees by officials. Due to the ambiguity of “legitimacy”, influenced by the gap in central and local interpretations of regulations, frame boundaries become very narrow. Protesters draw from rhetoric set by the state, further innovate, and engage in interactions with officials using the innovated movement frame. I demonstrate: 1) There are ambiguities in what is “legitimate” for the state, exemplified through state responses to environmental grievances addressed through formal institutional channels; 2) In all communities, two protest frames emerged: a “legal frame” and a “science frame”. The science frame seemed to be the more effective frame in that it better engaged with concrete official environmental rhetoric rather than ambiguous legal concepts; 3) Even though the science frame is more effective, they are not necessarily “safe frames”. Frames alone do not determine movement outcomes, but need to be utilized in conjunction with informal protest strategies; 4) Science frames facilitate government-protest dialogue and interaction which led to longer-term consequences where the state reversed previous repression.

Author

• Jean Yen-chun Lin, Stanford University