The Lonely Citizen Vs. The Isolated Citizen: Disentangling the Political Consequences of Subjective and Objective Social Disconnection

The rise of loneliness and social fragmentation across Western democracies is increasingly identified as a root cause of democratic disaffection and political instability. Yet, earlier studies conflate two distinct phenomena: objective social isolation—the structural lack of social networks—and subjective loneliness—the painful perception of disconnection. This conceptual ambiguity obscures the political consequences of social disconnection, which this paper argues are divergent rather than unified. Understanding which citizens retreat from democracy and which turn toward radical alternatives is critical to diagnosing the sources of democratic crisis. Drawing on civic voluntarism theory and psychological reaffiliation theory, the paper contrasts two competing mechanisms. First, objective isolation is hypothesized to deplete the social recruitment networks and civic resources necessary for political engagement, leading to political withdrawal and disengagement. Second, subjective loneliness is theorized to generate psychological distress and activate a need for belonging; this psychological void may render individuals susceptible to the identity-affirming and grievance-validating narratives offered by populist and anti-establishment parties. The two pathways are analytically distinct: the objectively isolated citizen becomes apolitical; the subjectively lonely citizen becomes radicalized. This distinction carries profound implications for understanding contemporary polarization and the fragmentation of democratic publics. To adjudicate between these mechanisms, the study employs within-person panel analysis using longitudinal data from the LISS Panel dataset from the Netherlands. The research design isolates individual-level changes over time, thereby addressing reverse-causality and omitted-variable bias that affects cross-sectional studies. The analysis simultaneously models objective isolation—derived from household composition and social contact patterns—and subjective loneliness as distinct psychological experiences and political stressors. The study examines two dependent variables: (1) political participation, including electoral turnout and political interest, and (2) electoral choice, operationalized as support for mainstream versus populist radical right parties. We hypothesize a dual-pathway model: objective isolation predicts political withdrawal and lower turnout, whereas subjective loneliness—independent of network size—predicts support for anti-establishment such as populist radical right parties. A novel contribution is the exploration of "mismatch" scenarios, where individuals are objectively well-integrated yet feeling subjectively lonely, or structurally isolated yet psychologically resilient. These mismatches are theorized to identify particularly volatile electoral constituencies susceptible to rapid political realignment and represent key swing voters in contemporary democracies. By empirically distinguishing these pathways, the study will provide actionable implications for democratic renewal: addressing structural isolation requires investment in civic infrastructure and community-building institutions, whereas combating the radicalization of the lonely demands inclusive political narratives that validate legitimate grievances without channeling them toward anti-establishment extremism. The findings will illuminate whether the contemporary crisis of democracy stems primarily from structural disconnection requiring institutional repair, or from affective disconnection requiring narrative and symbolic intervention—or whether both pathways operate simultaneously in different segments of the electorate.