The public perception to protest policing in Hong Kong : the relationship between participation in protest and protest policing

Abstract

The dissertation investigates the relationship between the public perception of protest policing and participation in social movements. The dissertation sets the background in Hong Kong, focusing especially on the Occupy Central Movement in 2014, which is regarded as a turning point in Hong Kong’s political protest history. Two main theories – new social movement theory and framing theory – will be used to evaluate the reasons for participation in the Occupy Central Movement and identify how protest policing influenced the participation in the protests. Instead of simply depicting the public perception to protest policing, the dissertation investigates into relationship between the perception of protest policing and participation in protests because it hopes to provide insights for future research on the aspect of policing – firstly, to understand more about the protestors and their norms and secondly, how to more efficiently and effectively contain a social protest, and thirdly, the importance of improving the relationship between the police and public to assist future work of protest policing.