5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

Democratic backsliding has been widely discussed in political science and sociology from the perspective of regime change, incumbents’ tactics to extend their power, regressive electoral and legal reforms, party and voter alignments as well as democratic resilience, EU interventions, and resistance to democratic backsliding from interest groups, political parties or civil society organizations. While social movements appear at the backdrop of these debates, inter-movement interactions and movements’ adaptation to changing political landscape is not extensively discussed.

Bringing together experts in social movement studies, comparative politics, and political sociology of institutions, the workshop seeks to further our theoretical and empirical understanding of the role and impact of social movements on the left and the right to resist or enable democratic backsliding.

This includes questions such as;

• Under which circumstances and using which tactics do social movements mobilize in favor of democratic backsliding?
• What determines the nature of alliances between more radical movements pushing for democratic backsliding with mainstream right-wing movements?
• How does counter-mobilization dynamics work in resistance to democratic backsliding in regards to different class dynamics?
• How do social movements adapt to changing political environment when democratic backsliding occurs?
• What type alliances do social movement and civil society actors build to resist democratic backsliding, what are the outcomes of these alliances?
• What are (if any) the unintended consequences of movement activity for or against democratic backsliding?