The Politics of the “Non-Political”: A Conceptual Review

Recent literature has documented a growing entanglement between political processes and many nonpolitical entities. This calls into question the traditional presupposition of politics as a self-contained sphere, highlighting the need to clarify how the conceptual relationship between the political and the nonpolitical has been established. In line with a relational understanding of politics, we provide a boundary analysis by looking at the “non-political” labeling in 140 empirical studies published in political science and communication journals. Two major conceptual treatments are identified: categorical, treating the “non-political” as an inherent, exclusive feature; and contextual, viewing it as a temporary, transformative state. Intellectual traditions, theoretical orientations, methodological standards, and rhetorical norms in academic knowledge production may explain why this boundary has been constructed in such different ways. We call for a more active reconciliation between these treatments, and argue that the nonpolitical, as well as (de)politicization, should be recognized as a meaningful analytical lens. It signifies a relational stance against the explicit, institutionalized politics in political communication studies, offering an indirect yet heuristically productive response to the question of what the political is.