Against Participation: Withdrawal, Exit, and Political Agency

Political theory has long treated participation as the paradigmatic expression of political agency. From deliberative democratic models to theories of civic virtue and resistance, agency is typically associated with voice, engagement, visibility, and contribution. Non-participation—whether in the form of withdrawal, silence, exit, or refusal—has correspondingly been framed as apathy, failure, or political loss. This workshop challenges that assumption by treating non-participation not as the absence of politics, but as a distinctive and under-theorized mode of political agency.

The workshop asks what political theory becomes when participation is no longer taken as its normative baseline. Rather than presuming that political subjects ought to engage, deliberate, or remain within institutional frameworks, participants will examine the conditions under which withdrawal, exit, and non-participation emerge as rational, strategic, or ethically significant political responses. These practices often arise in contexts where participation is constrained, coercive, ineffective, or morally compromising, raising fundamental questions about agency, legitimacy, and political responsibility.

11:30-13:00Registration

12:30-14:00Lunch

14:00-16:00Session 1: Participation, Coercion, and Legitimacy

Joonas S. Martikainen - On “Inclusive” Participation and Political Impoverishment: When Is Withdrawal of Political Participation a Choice?

16:00-16:30Tea and Coffee Break (optional)

16:30-17:30Session 1 (continued)

Extended Workshop Discussion

17:45-19:00Wine Reception

19:30Conference Dinner

9:30-11:30Session 2: Silence, Visibility, and Epistemic Refusal

Eirini Vryza - Silence as Counterspeech

11:30-12:00Tea and Coffee Break (optional)

12:00-13:00Session 2 (continued)

Free Writing

13:00-14:00Lunch

14:00-16:00Session 3: Exit, Separation, and Political Agency 

Elizabeth Levinson - Exit as Agency: Self-determination, Secession, and Persistent Political Minorities

Martha Crowe - Political Withdrawal: An Exploration of the Phenomenon and its Consequences for Democracies Today

16:00-16:30Tea and Coffee Break (optional)

16:30-17:30Session 3 (continued)

Extended Workshop Discussion

9:30-11:30Session 4: Withdrawal as Critique and World-Making

Sabrina Muchová - “Only a saint can resist not joining in”: Adorno on the political power of withdrawal

Tom Bailey - Graeber against participation

11:30-12:00Tea and Coffee Break (optional)

12:00-13:00Session 4 (continued)

Collective discussion and working-group responses

13:00-14:00Lunch

14:00-16:00Session 5: Refusal, Abolition, and Politics Beyond Participation 

Lucie Maughan - Divine Violence, Abolition, and Lessons for Liberation

Closing roundtable and collective synthesis discussion

16:00-16:30Tea and Coffee Break (optional)

16:30-17:30Session 5 (continued)

N/A

17:30End of Conference