From "universal suffrage" to "Hong Kong independence" : understanding Hong Kong university students’ political participation from a criminological perspective

Abstract

Democratic movements in Hong Kong fell into a low ebb after the Umbrella Movement, while the political demands and resistance force have shown a trend of radicalization, such as the ideology of Hong Kong Independence and self-determination. Under this circumstance, the group of university students played a significant role in participating in and organizing the political discussions and taking action. This study has discussed the shift of some Hong Kong university students’ political demand to a more extreme level and argues that the echo chamber effect in political discussion, the decentralized mobilization and the dualist thinking method of “friend or foe” are the main reasons leading to the radicalized ideology of these students who support separating from China. This article adopted the framework of political process theory, from the perspective of political opportunity, mobilizing structure, framing process and contentious repertories to analyze how the political participation of Hong Kong university students has evolved, and what are the reasons and influence behind them.