The Transnational Flow of Tactical Dispositions: The Chinese Democracy Movement and Falun Gong

Abstract

This article examines the tactical repertoires of two diaspora-based Chinese protest movements; the Chinese democracy movement and the Falun Gong, a religious community that has been banned in China since 1999. Data, which were collected and coded using quantitative narrative analysis (QNA) software, take the form of inventories of tactics used by each movement. In spite of general contextual similarity in political opportunity and context faced by both movements, the inventory data reveal that each movement had its own overarching "tactical disposition," which is understood as a relational pattern between challengers, publics, and authorities. Findings also suggest that the tactical dispositions of the movements initially formed in China and then migrated to diaspora, where they influenced further tactical decision making. The durability of tactical dispositions across such disparate political settings (e.g., China/North America) points to the role of within-group culture in shaping how movements respond to protest opportunities in transnational contexts.