Multi-channelled forceful intervention, frames and protest success—a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative study of 40 anti-demolition protests in China

Abstract

Having incorporated the characteristics of Chinese politics, this article puts forward an exploratory analytic framework for understanding protest success and points out how political opportunities and protest frames can explain protest success. Political opportunities not only include direct intervention by the central government but also support from state-sponsored media and favourable policies and laws. This article uses the method of fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to compare 40 socially influential cases of anti-demolition protests in China. The results show that the co-presence of central government intervention and supportive reports from central state-sponsored media—which this study calls “multi-channelled forceful intervention”—is a sufficient condition for protest success. Further, “multi-channelled forceful intervention” depends on a favourable institutional environment and protestors’ strategic use of multiple frames. This article not only enriches the studies on protest results but also expands on the theory of political opportunity structures and the study of protest frames.