Political engagement is the participation of citizens in selecting and sanctioning the leaders who wield power in government, including by entering themselves as contenders for leadership. Political engagement includes citizen actions as voters, as actual and potential challengers for leadership positions in government, and in organized groups that pressure elected politicians and appointed public officials through civil society action and public protests.

Collective and community-based practices and efforts to meet people's needs, independent of state systems and other hierarchical, oppressive arrangements. Mutual aid is grounded in reciprocity and solidarity rather than charity, and builds shared understandings of the systemic failures that make community care for survival necessary. Mutual aid is a form of political participation that allows us to build relationships and formations that make the conditions we face more survivable and strengthen our ability to take collective action.

Tactics often used in social movements such as protests, civil disobedience, sit-ins, blockades, strikes, walkouts, de-arrests, banner drops, and sabotage that are meant to disrupt the system and achieve a political goal outside of the formal channels of civic engagement. Direct action tactics are used for a wide range of purposes, such as to prevent evictions, defend the environment, highlight systemic contradictions, bring awareness to a problem, stop harmful proposals, and express community outrage.

Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are representative democracies.