Nexus Politics

In: Democratic theory: an interdisciplinary journal, Band 5, Heft 2, S. 56-81

Abstract

Existing research on alternative forms of political participation
does not adequately account for why those forms of participation at
an "everyday" level should be defined as political. In this article we aim to
contribute new conceptual and theoretical depth to this research agenda
by drawing on sociological theory to posit a framework for determining
whether nontraditional forms of political engagement can be defined as genuinely
distinctive from traditional participation. Existing "everyday politics"
frameworks are analytically underdeveloped, and the article argues instead
for drawing upon Michel Maffesoli's theory of "neo-tribal" politics. Applying
Maffesoli's insights, we provide two questions for operationally defining
"everyday" political participation, as expressing autonomy from formal political
institutions, and building new political organizations from the bottom
up. This creates a substantive research agenda of not only operationally defining
political participation, but examining how traditional governmental
institutions and social movements respond to a growth in everyday political
participation: nexus politics.