Political Mobilisation Between Resistance and Repression

Abstract

Political mobilisation is part and parcel of the ongoing and turbulent reshaping of the world order, and it is visible in increasing political participation in (once) consolidated democracies, hybrid and authoritarian regimes alike. Incidents activating this mobilisation range from global (e.g. solidarity mobilisations with Palestinians, Ukranians, Iranians) to national and local (e.g. recent or ongoing protests in Indonesia, Iran and Serbia), often involving citizens’ protests and occupations of public space and institutions. In turn, such mobilisation is met by overt repression and violence, censorship, as well as more understated tactics by the authorities, e.g. political and affective delegitimization. This panel explores contemporary political mobilisation, focusing both on the internal dynamic of protests and on how those mobilising respond to changing external conditions, including repression by the authorities. The papers in the panel provide a rich empirical backdrop, covering mobilisation and repression of the human rights movements in Egypt and Iran from 2000 to 2020, affective framing and delegitimization of the August 2025 protests in Indonesia, various forms of political disqualification of the Palestinian solidarity protests in Brussels since October 2023, as well as explorations of the meso-level dynamics of the ongoing protests in Serbia. This in turns enables reflections on the conceptual, theoretical and methodological toolbox currently available for analysing old and emerging forms of political mobilisation.

Title	Details
Political Participation at the Edge: Human Rights Mobilisation, Lived Experience, and Authoritarian Power	View Paper Details
Governing the Outrage: Affective Authoritarianism and Anti-Government Protests in Southeast Asia	View Paper Details
Repression and Political Disqualification: Resilience and Resistance in Pro-Palestinian Youth Activism in Brussels (Belgium)	View Paper Details
Defending Democracy Through Large Scale Institutional Work – From an Illustration to a Research Agenda	View Paper Details