Networks of Non-Participation: Comparing 'Supportive', 'Unsupportive' and 'Undecided' Non-Participants in the UK Student Protests against Fees and Cuts

As a topic in its own right, political non-participation is under-studied in the social sciences. While

existing approaches have tended to focus on the gaps between engagement patterns and public

policy, or the rational disincentives to an individual’s participation, less attention has been paid

to the explanatory power of socio-cultural factors. Taking its lead from studies by Oegema and

Klandermans and Norgaard, this article uses recent student protests in the UK as a case study for

exploring non-participation. Drawing on survey and interview data, findings indicate that whereas

network access and collective identification are commonly seen as helping produce and sustain

political participation, networks of collective dis-identification might help to produce and sustain

political non-participation.