A Study On Resource Mobilization Strategies Of Human Rights Lawyers In Public Events

Since the 21st century, contentious politics as a structural characteristic of Chinese society has been notable day by day. On the other hand, more and more public events came up in ways of collective protests, right defense activities, group conflicts and so on, which made a great influence to the development of economy and the stabilization of society. And it is worth noting that along with the occurring of public events, a sociogroup which made by human rights lawyers have been growing up and is playing an important role in the process of policy change.Human rights lawyers not only have professional knowledge and plenty social resource, but also possess strong critical spirits and active construction concepts. They have shown great tactic and skills during promoting policy change. While, since case study as a research method can present the function of human rights lawyers and the mechanism of policy change in a better way, we choose three typical cases to analyze the resource mobilization strategy of human rights lawyers, ie. the case of Zhigang Sun in 2003, the case of entrapment in Shanghai in 2009 and the case of Jianyu Ren in 2012.Actually, the action strategy of human rights lawyers is shown as a construction of concentric circle in a way of "Frame- Network- Public Opinion". Firstly, during the process of constructing the frame, by taking the human care and consciousness of responsibility of intelligentsia as a start of cognition, a sense of mission about caring the society, protecting the weak and promoting the social equity and justice has been set up. And it also brings the lawyers inexhaustible support, natural morality and extensive public identify. By taking the law as a rule of action, the validity and the normative of the action has been guaranteed and a reasonable logic of legal construction has been publicized as well. And by taking the incrementalism of changing the unreasonable institution bit by bit as a construction concept, the lawyers not only spread the faith of legal society and social equity but also excite the socail consensus. Secondly, based on not only the transverse relational network like media reporters, other lawyers and social supporters but also the longitudinal relational network including judges and officers, the lawyers not merely receive social resource and emotional support but also confirm the boundary of the actions.Furthermore, in the process of making public opinion, on one hand, the lawyers build public opinion platform through we-media to attract more attention from the society, on the other hand, they make full use of traditional media and produce media issues to mobilize and lead the public opinion.The action strategy of human rights lawyers has shown a great role in the process of policy change. It is not only propitious to excite the public resonance but also do good to gaining more social resource. What’s more, it guarantees the safety of the whole action as well. As a great social force from external system, human rights lawyers have build up a bridge of reasonable communication for both state and society. In some way, the action strategy of their resource mobilization has shown a rewarding model for the active change of public policies.