(Digital) Democratic Innovations & Actions Within Political Parties

Abstract

Debates on democratic renewal and the expanding use of digital technologies have become central to contemporary party politics, yet their effects on party organisation and competition remain unevenly examined. While party research has often focused on programmatic, electoral, and organisational adaptations to challenges such as the rise of populist parties, membership decline, voter dealignment, and diminishing institutional trust, less is known about how democratic innovations help parties navigate these pressures. This panel explores how the adoption of (digital) democratic innovations is reshaping our understanding of political party behaviour. It seeks to address both the motivations for implementing (digital) democratic innovations and the consequences of doing so. Bringing together comparative and case-based analyses, and applying quantitative, experimental, and qualitative methods, the panel presents papers that theorise and empirically examine the ways in which parties utilise offline and digital democratic innovations to adapt at organisational, electoral, and governmental levels.

Title	Details
The Electoral Payoffs of Parties' Use of Democratic Innovations for Internal Reform: Success or Backlash?	View Paper Details
Who Gains from Digitalisation? Examining Party Organisation in Spain and the UK	View Paper Details
Seeing Like an Entrepreneur: Exploiting Authoritarian Populism as Creative Destruction	View Paper Details
Pirate Parties and Citizen–Representative Platforms	View Paper Details
Still Shaking Hands and Kissing Babies? Digitalization, AI, and Traditional Campaigning in Greek Politics	View Paper Details