Non-Participation and Social Movements

Abstract

Frustrated expectations, disaffection and alienation from established pathways of political participation have often been identified as the driving forces of abstention from political participation while movement participation at the same time has been described to address those grievances in positive and mobilizing ways. When on the one hand the rise in movement participation is interpreted as an indicator of the loss of trust in more traditional formats of political participation this might on the other hand contradict empirical findings that movement participation is often not an exclusive vehicle for those alienated but facilitating complementary opportunities for those taking advantage of other forms of political participation as well. Research on mobilization and participation has for a long time looked at the individual and collective conditionality of alienation and distrust leading to mobilization and has pointed to a variety of possibly activating resources: from political interest, the feeling of political efficacy, dissatisfaction with political outcomes, to low social inequality levels, higher educational levels, time constraints, financial resources or the presence of social networks. When missing these resources, frustration might in turn lead to de-mobilisation and non-participation. This panel seeks to bring together research on alienation and frustration as mobilizing factors for political participation with the research on social movement participation. Who participates in movements out of political frustration and who abstains alienated even from social movements? Under which circumstances can social movements absorb those that turn away in disaffection from political parties, elections, and other established channels of democratic decision making and therefore help voice grievances that would otherwise be left unheard? The panel invites papers that investigate the relationship between disaffection, alienation, non-participation and social movement participation. It especially welcomes participants to consider how differing demands for participation in different sectors of societies might be a consequence of disillusion with regard to traditional forms of political participation such as voting or political party membership etc.