ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses why and how a decentralised social movement persists under authoritarian rule by examining the case of the Hong Kong protests in 2019. This chapter argues that a leaderless movement can sustain protests through a process of collaboration among different mobilisation networks, which produce a variety of creative movement tactics, awakening the political agency and solidarity of citizens at both decision-making and operational levels. As a result, the movement evolves to be “leaderless”, but at the same time “leader-full”. In the 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition movement, three sets of mobilisation networks can be found in traditional social movement organisations, sectoral groups that were formed in response to the movement, and anonymous individuals connected via internet technology. This wider leaderless network built mutual trust between individuals and organised protestors, engendered cross-sectoral solidarity and creativity as expressed by a variety of protest actions, as well as empowered protestors to be autonomous political agents, which established resilience of the movement against the authoritarian government.
