The Learning Curve of Activists' Discourse in Hong Kong and Taiwan: Analysis of Movement Frames from a Path-Dependent Perspective

• In Event: Youth Activism, Identity Politics and Movement Repertoire in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China

Abstract

As a reaction to China’s political-economic influence, two social movements erupted last year. One was the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan. The other was the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. Their discourses were similar and were both responses to the pressures China created for the two societies. These elements could be seen in many statements, media interviews and movement slogans that featured the “China Factor”. More interestingly, the protesters even referred to each other in their slogans, including lines such as “Today’s Hong Kong, Tomorrow’s Taiwan” or “Taiwanese, Please Step on Our Corpses and Go Forward.”

This paper seeks to explain how and why these discourses emerged and acquired such resemblance to each other. It does so by applying frame processes (Benford & Snow, 2000) to a historical sociological examination of path-dependency (Mahoney, 2000). I argue that the formation of the discourses in these movements derives from the fact that the activists had learned from and imitated past experiences, which evolved around existing activist networks linking Taiwan and Hong Kong.

I trace the Sunflower Movement back to the 2008 Wild Strawberries Movement and the Umbrella Movement to the 2007 Star Ferry Pier and Queen's Pier Preservation Campaign to examine the framing processes. After all, discourse does not appear in a cultural vacuum, and it is unlikely that activists in these two societies arrived at such similar perceptions about China’s influence completely independently.

Methodologically, the paper employs participant observation, in-depth interview and document analysis to examine the dynamic formation of movement discourses.

Author

• I-Lun Shih, National Chengchi University