bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Jonathan Pinckney

The massive demonstrations against the amendment to Hong Kong’s extradition law draw on a long tradition of dissent in the city. Yet they also represent several unique changes in protest movements worldwide.
The march on June 9 by as many as a million participants may have been the largest in Hong Kong’s history, and the subsequent clashes on June 12 were an unprecedented escalation of police violence.
The demonstrations also displayed a significant degree of self-organisation, with coordinating groups such as the Civil Human Rights Front playing a marginal role.
While protests of such intensity and characteristics may be new to Hong Kong, they are part of a growing global phenomenon of predominately youthful, largely non-violent public resistance. So what can similar movements around the world teach us about the likely next steps for the anti-extradition forces?

LESSONS FROM ABROAD
A movement’s size is a strong but imperfect indication of its likely outcome. Larger movements tend to succeed more frequently than the small. Widespread, diverse participation means more leverage over opponents and a greater ability to disrupt organisations and institutions.
‘One country, two systems’ is good for business – and for Beijing
But in the age of the internet and social media, putting large numbers of people on the street has become increasingly easy. It is turning those numbers into meaningful political change that has become difficult.
Leading scholars have identified three characteristics beyond sheer numbers that tend to help primarily non-violent movements succeed in bringing about change: unity, strategic planning, and non-violent discipline.




Unity is important because it communicates the fact that the movement’s goals are widely shared, and makes it more difficult for decision-makers to dismiss participants as just a few troublemakers. Strategic planning allows for the maximisation of impact. And avoiding violence undermines the justification for government repression and encourages moderates to join the cause.
So how do youth-led leaderless movements like Hong Kong’s perform when measured by these three yardsticks?
LEADERLESS PROTESTS
Lacking leaders and complex organisational structures may be a good thing for maintaining unity. A single leader like Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jnr can be an inspiring figure. But leaders often fall short of these extraordinary examples, dividing movements over disagreements on policy and tactics. Participants may then spend more time fighting each other rather than opponents.
Blame naive Lam, not Beijing, for extradition law mess
The unifying benefits of leaderlessness have been prominent in the anti-extradition demonstrations. Protesters have expressed a greater acceptance of conflicting views and more willingness to focus on a single agenda.

When it comes to non-violent discipline, movements led from the ground up might seem more inclined to violence, but recent research indicates they may actually be more peaceful than hierarchical groups. This is in part because leaders may encourage violence for their own narrow ends, whereas most ordinary people will avoid it if they can. Leaderless movements may also encourage greater feelings of ownership among participants that encourage a peaceful approach.
Incidents of violence so far may be more of an exception and not indicative of an inevitable move away from peaceful means among leaderless, youth-led movements.




PLAN FOR SUCCESS
Where leaderless protests tend to struggle is in strategic planning. It is easy to unify a leaderless group around a single, simple goal. It is harder to coordinate a series of targeted tactics to achieve that goal, or to accept compromises along the way. And yet such targeting and compromise are often crucial to success.
Those such as the civil rights movement in the United States or the Otpor movement in Serbia spent years carefully analysing their opponents’ political weaknesses and planning the time, place and nature of their protests to exploit those vulnerabilities. Their work bore fruit in major political changes.

In contrast, more spontaneous leaderless protests such as Occupy Wall Street or the Gezi Park demonstrations in Turkey have had difficulty turning the momentum of their initial turnout into a series of targeted tactics designed to achieve specific goals. This difficulty has led to demobilisation. In Egypt, a largely leaderless group succeeded in ousting dictatorial president Hosni Mubarak but then struggled to consolidate its gains once he was gone.
What does all this mean for the next steps in the anti-extradition protests? Their size and unity make them difficult to ignore. The growing economic consequences are likely to put significant pressure on the government to resolve the crisis as quickly as possible.
However, the movement is likely to struggle in the strategic back and forth of reaching an acceptable conclusion. How its nascent leaders respond to that challenge will play a crucial role in determining the final outcome. ■
Jonathan Pinckney is a research fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the author of When Civil Resistance Succeeds: Building Democracy after Popular Non-violent Uprisings


Former Hong Kong opposition lawmakers jailed for causing Legco ruckus

Hong Kong social worker convicted of rioting in 2019 protest after retrial

Hong Kong businessman found guilty of rioting at Yuen Long MTR station in 2019

China can build bridges as Trump’s America builds walls

Hong Kong extradition bill

Can Hong Kong’s extradition protesters succeed without a leader?

A demonstrator refuses to budge during Wednesday’s extradition law protest. Photo: Dickson Lee

TOPSHOT - Police officers use a water canon on a lone protestor near the government headquarters in Hong Kong on June 12, 2019. - Large crowds of protesters gathered in central Hong Kong as the city braced for another mass rally in a show of strength against the government over a divisive plan to allow extraditions to China. (Photo by Anthony WALLACE / AFP)

Anti-extradition protestors occupies Harcourt Road, Admiralty. 12JUN19 SCMP / Winson Wong

epa07642600 Protesters take part in a rally against an extradition bill outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong, China, 12 June 2019. The bill, scheduled for a second reading on 12 June has faced immense opposition from pan-democrats, the business sector, and the international community, would allow the transfer of fugitives to jurisdictions which Hong Kong does not have a treaty with, including mainland China. Critics of the bill have expressed concern over unfair trials and a lack of human rights protection in mainland China. EPA-EFE/JEROME FAVRE

Hong Kong extradition protests: ‘one country, two systems’ is good for business – and for Beijing

The massive protests against Hong Kong’s proposed anti-extradition bill to China have spooked some in the business community. Photo: Winson Wong

***PAY PER USE. Please re-download from vendor website.*** Shutterstock ID 600704651 Flag of hong kong on an US dollar background. Finance concept. Photo: Shutterstock

Protesters flee clouds of tear gas as anti-riot police officers fire tear gas at Harcourt Road in Admiralty to push anti-extradition bill protesters further away from the Legislative Council Complex in Tamar, Admiralty. 12JUN19 SCMP / Sam Tsang

Hong Kong’s extradition law mess: don’t blame Beijing, blame naive Carrie Lam

Riot police in Admiralty disperse protesters against Hong Kong’s extradition law. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor speaks to the media and urges schools, businesses and unions to think twice before going on strike in protest against the extradition bill legislation at the Chief Executive's Office in Tamar. 11JUN19 SCMP / Winson Wong

Chan Tong-kai arrived at High Court. 29APR19 SCMP / Winson Wong

Chief Secretary for Administration, Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, photographed at his office in Tamar, during an interview on the extradition bill. 10JUN19 SCMP / May Tse

This Week in Asia

Politics

Geopolitics

Society

News

Asia

East Asia

Hong Kong

Youth-led, leaderless movements project a united front and are less prone to violence
But without strategic planning and coordination, they risk losing momentum


Youth-led, leaderless movements project a united front and are less prone to violence. But without strategic planning and coordination, they risk losing momentum


Hong Kong youth

Social media

Hong Kong political reform

Human rights

Based on factual reporting but incorporating the expertise of the author, offering interpretations and conclusions.  (Eg. Clash of Civilisations in South China Sea: will China or the US prevail?)


Analysis

Analysis | Can Hong Kong’s extradition protesters succeed without a leader?

Youth-led, leaderless movements project a united front and are less prone to violence But without strategic planning and coordination, they risk losing momentum

Youth-led, leaderless movements project a united front and are less prone to violence

But without strategic planning and coordination, they risk losing momentum