Framing the Democracy Debate in Hong Kong

This article examines the discourses of democracy in the context of political development in Hong Kong during the first 12 years after the 1997 handover using rhetoric and frame analysis. Overall, the study shows how political actors define political options and promote development, which is favourable to their interests and views, through framing democracy in different ways. The study reveals the frames that describe different points of view, and contributes to the understanding of democrats' position as re-framers. The found frames are clustered into paradigmatic framesets that deal with the concrete democracy issue and the political situation in present-day Hong Kong. Consequently, the democracy debate in Hong Kong is organised around two opposite and idealised templates for democracy. The first cluster forms the pro-establishment model, which suggests solutions built around consensus and practical means. The second frameset, mostly used by the pro-democrats, supports the idea of a wider democratic change which entails broad normative changes in politics.