ABSTRACT
The introduction opens by posing the question why there are successful policy advocacy cases by non-state actors in authoritarian China. After reviewing studies attempting to explain this puzzle, I show that these explanations either focus on institutional factors or stop at frame analysis. This book goes deeper, to clarify the mechanism behind frame analysis and to investigate the socio-cultural context behind civil activists' actions and discourse. I argue it is not these cultural “toolkits,” but the mechanism of cultural resonance achieved (or not) through the symbolic codes embodied by these toolkits which explains whether advocacy succeeds or fails. This cultural-sociological approach not only contributes to the current discussion on Chinese civil society, but also represents a theoretical innovation in social movement studies in general. The methodological section explains how the eight case studies were chosen based on criteria of iconicity and relevance, and how the qualitative data were collected as part of the participant observation and semi-structured interviews.
