“You have to fight for it” The Hong Kong Protests 2019 – 2020 and the Power of Social Movements on Democratization

Abstract: In the last decade, social movements have demonstrated their power of bringing change to societies, often in terms of democratization. At the same time, the level of democracy in the world has been established as decreasing. It is therefore interesting to study whether the increase of social movements is related to the decline of democracy. The aim of this thesis was thus to explore the perception of democracy amongst activists in a social movement calling for democratization. This was done by conducting semi-structured interviews with activists of varying degrees of participation in the Hong Kong protests 2019 – 2020. The results of the study indicated that a majority of the activists regarded democracy from the perspective of liberal democracy, stressing the importance of elections and protection of human rights through a well-grounded constitution. Nevertheless, some of the respondents sought more than a fundamental description of democracy, incorporating elements of deliberation and participation as well. The Hong Kong protests 2019 – 2020 have not seen the end yet. Likewise, the existence of social movements will forever remain through variations of repertoires. The significance of what conception of democracy motivates activists to organise themselves through civil society movements remains to be academically covered in full. Thus, future studies of democratization should continue to shed light on the role of the civil society in democratization processes.