Literature Review (Linear Essay Version)
With the Occupy Central taking place, massive media has reported on the action of democratization and supported the courage of the students to pursue human dignity. However, is the action really good for Hong Kong? Is the action really effective? What is a better strategy?
Loblich, M., and M. Wendelin’s article “ICT Policy Activism on a National Level: Ideas, Resources and Strategies of German Civil Society in Governance Processes." This article provided an analysis regarding the civil disobedience and very importantly, the strategies of civil society in German. Powell, Lewis F., Jr., on the other hand, discuss civil disobedience in America. This is an American lawyer's perspective on massive civil obedience cases during the 1960s with regard to civil rights. These civil rights are particularly associated with the African American issues. In this argument, the lawyer tried to separate the action of civil disobedience and civil rights issues, and claim that as a lawyer, he needs to be rational about these actions, and that it is his "duty to examine critically and test against proven principles any doctrine affecting the law which is as far reaching as civil disobedience." This technique or argument is shared with this research. The research will only look at the methodology of the Hong Kong protest, and take a "rational" point of view regarding the action itself, but focuses less on the issue (universal suffrage and democracy) itself. Similar to civil rights issues, the issue of democracy is also one with almost universal consent but differ in approaches with regard to how to achieve them.
Many civil society activities and particularly strategies have been analyzed in Western Europe, Middle East, the America and many other places. However, the strategy study has not been spread to Asia. Hong Kong protest is a hot debated political issue that lacks enough analysis regarding the methodology. However, in China, civil disobedience and popular protests are all officially called “Collective incidents.”
In "Revisiting the Tiananmen Square Incident: A Distorted Image from Both Sides of the Lens",Allen Chang provided a revisit of the famous Tiananmen Square Incident, and specifically focused on the conflicting specific numbers of the incidents: 1) number of number of casualties that resulted from the incident, 2) whether the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) killed students inside the square (as opposed to only those blocking the army’s path on the main roads leading to the square). The Tiananmen Square Incident is very similar in many ways to Occupy Central movement. Students are the main objects in both cases to protest, and both involve a democratization of the government. Hurst, William’s article "Understanding Contentious Collective Action by Chinese Laid-off Workers: The Importance of Regional Political Economy" provided a deeper study of a category of collective incidents that is typically successful in China. Wage protest is relatively common and usually the government will grant the petition. The wage raise is actually really important to the state economy, and typically the Chinese government can easily feel more sympathetic with the protestors when it gets to the well-being of the citizens because of the nature of the government and the source of legitimacy of the government.
Finally, social consequences of the protests have been explored through researches. Sabucedo, Jose Manuel, Mar Durán, Mónica Alzate, and Idaly Barreto wrote "Emotions, Ideology and Collective Political Action" provided a very similar case study of protests with regard to the Spanish Government’s decision to negotiate with ETA. Three category of emotion is associated with collective actions: anger, enthusiasm, and anxiety. Anger and enthusiasm account for a high percentage of variance in the attention to demonstrate. The study shows that anger leads to a negative response to the decision while enthusiasm leads to a positive response to the decision. In the case of Hong Kong Occupy Central, apparently anger is more present than any other emotion, and this is also a danger of producing more anger from the protestors. This creates a social conflict within the society. Social conflicts also arise because of generation gap. Ho, Ester Sui-chu.’s article "Students’ Self-Esteem in an Asian Educational System: Contribution of Parental Involvement and Parental Investment" partially explained the Asian students and their culture, which may lead toward some insights into the social consequences of the protest.
Loblich, M., and M. Wendelin’s article “ICT Policy Activism on a National Level: Ideas, Resources and Strategies of German Civil Society in Governance Processes." This article provided an analysis regarding the civil disobedience and very importantly, the strategies of civil society in German. Powell, Lewis F., Jr., on the other hand, discuss civil disobedience in America. This is an American lawyer's perspective on massive civil obedience cases during the 1960s with regard to civil rights. These civil rights are particularly associated with the African American issues. In this argument, the lawyer tried to separate the action of civil disobedience and civil rights issues, and claim that as a lawyer, he needs to be rational about these actions, and that it is his "duty to examine critically and test against proven principles any doctrine affecting the law which is as far reaching as civil disobedience." This technique or argument is shared with this research. The research will only look at the methodology of the Hong Kong protest, and take a "rational" point of view regarding the action itself, but focuses less on the issue (universal suffrage and democracy) itself. Similar to civil rights issues, the issue of democracy is also one with almost universal consent but differ in approaches with regard to how to achieve them.
Many civil society activities and particularly strategies have been analyzed in Western Europe, Middle East, the America and many other places. However, the strategy study has not been spread to Asia. Hong Kong protest is a hot debated political issue that lacks enough analysis regarding the methodology. However, in China, civil disobedience and popular protests are all officially called “Collective incidents.”
In "Revisiting the Tiananmen Square Incident: A Distorted Image from Both Sides of the Lens",Allen Chang provided a revisit of the famous Tiananmen Square Incident, and specifically focused on the conflicting specific numbers of the incidents: 1) number of number of casualties that resulted from the incident, 2) whether the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) killed students inside the square (as opposed to only those blocking the army’s path on the main roads leading to the square). The Tiananmen Square Incident is very similar in many ways to Occupy Central movement. Students are the main objects in both cases to protest, and both involve a democratization of the government. Hurst, William’s article "Understanding Contentious Collective Action by Chinese Laid-off Workers: The Importance of Regional Political Economy" provided a deeper study of a category of collective incidents that is typically successful in China. Wage protest is relatively common and usually the government will grant the petition. The wage raise is actually really important to the state economy, and typically the Chinese government can easily feel more sympathetic with the protestors when it gets to the well-being of the citizens because of the nature of the government and the source of legitimacy of the government.
Finally, social consequences of the protests have been explored through researches. Sabucedo, Jose Manuel, Mar Durán, Mónica Alzate, and Idaly Barreto wrote "Emotions, Ideology and Collective Political Action" provided a very similar case study of protests with regard to the Spanish Government’s decision to negotiate with ETA. Three category of emotion is associated with collective actions: anger, enthusiasm, and anxiety. Anger and enthusiasm account for a high percentage of variance in the attention to demonstrate. The study shows that anger leads to a negative response to the decision while enthusiasm leads to a positive response to the decision. In the case of Hong Kong Occupy Central, apparently anger is more present than any other emotion, and this is also a danger of producing more anger from the protestors. This creates a social conflict within the society. Social conflicts also arise because of generation gap. Ho, Ester Sui-chu.’s article "Students’ Self-Esteem in an Asian Educational System: Contribution of Parental Involvement and Parental Investment" partially explained the Asian students and their culture, which may lead toward some insights into the social consequences of the protest.