Regime Adaptation Vis-À-Vis New Forms of Participation

Abstract

Political participation has both increased and diversified during and since the Covid-19 pandemic, yet the implications of this transformation for political regimes remain insufficiently understood. The pandemic acted as a catalyst for new modes of engagement, accelerating pre-existing trends while also generating novel forms of political expression. Traditional or formal participation—most prominently voter turnout—has continued to decline in many contexts. At the same time, informal participation has grown substantially, particularly among younger generations. These informal practices include digital activism, community-based initiatives, protest movements, and new modes of expressive or identity-driven engagement that often unfold outside institutionalised channels. While expanded participation appears to make political arenas more inclusive of groups historically marginalised or disengaged from formal politics (like for instance the youth, women and unemployed), this diversification has not automatically translated into higher democratic quality. Nor has it consistently bolstered societal resilience against autocrats, processes of autocratization, or democratic backsliding. In some cases, new forms of engagement have been even accompanied by democratic backsliding and autocratization, especially when informed by a populist discourse and/or accrued by political polarization. These developments highlight the need for a systematic examination of the nuanced and sometimes contradictory relationship between participation and regime trajectories. This panel aims to explore these complexities by analysing how different forms of political engagement—formal, informal, digital, localised, or transnational—interact with regime types and shifting regime configurations in the post-pandemic era. In particular, it aims to assess whether and in which ways these new trends of participation are changing the extant political orders, with a particular eye to the effects they have in terms of democratic resilience, democratic enhancement or democratic backsliding. The panel welcomes, but is not limited to, papers that address the following themes: - the mapping and evolution of political participation during and after the pandemic; - the classification and conceptual development of the different forms of political participation, with particular attention to informal and digital practices; - the relationship between specific types of participation and particular regime types, ranging from liberal democracies to hybrid and authoritarian systems; - regime responses to changing patterns of participation, including repression, adaptation, or co-optation; - strategies employed by regimes to confront, manage, or channel emergent forms of political engagement. The panel does not privilege any specific methodological approach and is open to the different techniques of analysis. It welcomes qualitative, quantitative, mixed-method, and theoretical contributions, as well as comparative and single-case analyses. By bringing together diverse perspectives, the panel aims to generate a more comprehensive understanding of how political participation is transforming—and being transformed by—contemporary political regimes.

Title	Details
Digital Vigilantism and the Demobilization of Political Participation in Post-2021 Tunisia	View Paper Details
How Do Trust and Voting Patterns Change Under Populism? Evidence from Tunisia (2011-2022)	View Paper Details
Dual Politicization and Regime Adaptation: Populist Discourse Between Protest and Parliament in Romania.	View Paper Details
Grassroots Party Activism: the Case of the “Tisza-Islands” in Hungary	View Paper Details
From Policy to Mobilisation: Repertoires of Endorsement and Contestation in Response to the European Green Deal	View Paper Details