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“Single Sparks” and Legacies: An Eventful Account of the May Fourth Movement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2022

Mark W. Frazier
Mark W. Frazier*
Affiliation:
New School for Social Research, New York, NY, USA
*
Corresponding author: Mark W. Frazier, email: frazierm@newschool.edu
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Abstract

The watershed in modern Chinese politics known as the May Fourth Movement (1919) offers insights into how a single protest event can quickly diffuse to other regions, draw in new participants and produce legacies in contentious politics. This article examines the May Fourth protests from the perspective of “eventful sociology” – an approach that examines how protests, repression and other contingent events link together to bring about landmark political episodes. It traces the sequence of protest and repression events in Beijing and draws on an original database of protest and repression events in Shanghai to emphasize the haphazard sequencing of actions and information flows that led the Chinese government to reverse its stance and concede to protestors’ demands. An eventful account illustrates how past protest sequences can produce a long-term impact on subsequent protest events. It also calls for greater awareness of “single sparks” that initiate protest sequences and unexpected political outcomes.

摘要

摘要

作为近代中国政治的分水岭，五四运动（1919）为我们研究为何一个单独的抗议事件可以迅速地散布到其他地区、引入新的参与者、并且对抗争政治产生后续影响提供了深刻洞见。本文从“事件社会学”的角度探究了五四中的抗议活动。“事件社会学”作为一种方法考察了抗议运动、镇压活动以及其它偶然性事件如何能够相互联系，并最终促成了一众具有里程碑意义的政治事件。本文追溯了一系列在北京的抗议与镇压事件，并通过一个独创的上海抗议与镇压事件数据库来说明恰恰是随机无序的一系列行动与信息流促使中国政府逆转其立场,并对抗议者们的需求作出退让。本文旨在阐释已经发生的连续性抗议事件是如何能够对后续的抗议活动产生长期影响。本文也试图引起人们对于那些引发连续抗议事件和意外政治结果的“星星之火”的更多关注。

Keywords

May Fourth Movementeventful sociologyprotest event sequencescontentious politicsRepublican China五四运动事件社会学抗议事件序列抗争政治中华民国
Type
Research Article
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 253 , March 2023 , pp. 1 - 18
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

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