Transformative events and their frames and repertoires of contention

This chapter seeks to explain how and why a series of critical events in post-handover Hong Kong produced breaks in its protest frames and repertoires of contention. I argue that the new protest agencies and their creative repertoires effectively mobilized young actors, sustained street occupations and shaped political debates, which subsequently contested protesters’ organizational dependence towards movement organizations and political elites. The defining features of the Umbrella Movement, including local identity, participatory practices and decentralized structure, are manifestations of these protest experiences. However, the spread of occupy tactics and localist claims has backfired. Different generations and factions of protestors have been split over what to flight for and how to approve their collective actions, which opened a window of opportunity for the hybrid regime to manoeuver elite cohesion and legal tools to erode and supress popular mobilization. These critical events have, therefore, mostly transformed Hong Kong’s protest structure, but its regime structure remains intact.