Political Disengagement: Causes and Consequences

Academic research on political disengagement was traditionally sparse
compared to the abundant literature on political participation and
mobilization. However, the global upsurge of mobilizations in late 2010
sparked substantial interest in the fate of the activists who participated
in those waves of protest. This led to a proliferation of new studies on
political disengagement. Meanwhile, the literature on extremist organizations
and political violence saw numerous new studies exploring activists’
pathways to political disengagement. The literature has since expanded
to encompass highly heterogeneous case studies of the forms of political
activism and repertoires of action (ranging from voluntary to clandestine
organizations), the political contexts (from democratic to authoritarian
regimes) and the countries involved (from the Global North to the Global
South). This panel aims to shed light on the different patterns of disengagement, as well as the context-specific dynamics and causal mechanisms that affect disengagement at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Furthermore, it aims to explore some issues that are underdeveloped in the existing literature, such as: the diversity of routes that are chosen by social movement organizations and activists, who face a movement’s decline; the specific patterns of disengagement in cases of individualized modes of political activism, such as lifestyle politics or digital activism; the political disengagement pace in relation to radical and moderate activists; and finally whether there is a relationship between the ideological underpinnings of political activism and the phenomenon of disengagement, i.e. the commonalities but also the differences among ideologically disparate political actors. This last point will also shed light on whether disengagement currently affects the entire political spectrum or tends to cluster around specific political groups. Additionally, the panel welcomes proposals concerning the impact of polarization on political disengagement and the political consequences of disengagement in terms of autocratization. While the panel focuses primarily on social movements, it also welcomes contributions on different manifestations of political activism.