Calibrated participation: youth expressions of dissent in a strongman’s heartland

How do young people living in a strongman’s heartland express dissent and advance political alternatives? This article develops the concept of ‘calibrated participation’ to theorise how young people engage politically under conditions of dominant strongman support. It moves beyond the distinction between ‘thin’ and ‘thick’ participation to discuss how calibrated participation captures a relational and risk-conscious mode of engagement. Drawing on qualitative research with young people in the political stronghold of the Marcos dynasty in the Philippines, the article shows how political expression is continuously adjusted across different contexts. The analysis conceptualises silence, humour, or selective (dis)engagement as forms of political labour and foregrounds self-care as a constitutive element of political participation. Calibrated participation offers a vocabulary for understanding how democratic commitments persist in politically charged and polarised environments, where dissent is neither fully suppressed nor easily expressed, but must be continuously negotiated.