Political Parties in the Digital Age: Has Everything Been Said?

Abstract

The academic literature on the uses of the internet within political parties and for web campaigning has been extensively developed over the last 10 years. However, there is a lack of a general framework that would provide an analysis of the relationship between the use of digital tools and the way political parties are transformed, so that the concept of political party itself can be re-defined, if necessary. Therefore this panel addresses three questions to potential authors, encouraging them to present their research in a conceptual perspective addressing the definition of what political parties are now: - How are internal organizations of parties challenged by the growing usage of digital technologies ? Is there a “deterritorialization” of politics, with for instance a weakening place of local branches and/or a reinforcement of certain kind of actors, such as some political communication staff? Can new people be reached through this usage, either widening or narrowing the potential audience and membership of political parties? - To what extent are parties challenged and influenced by other groups in their use of technologies, either their counterparts, or collective action groups and social movements - that use digital tools intensely -, or even other organizations such as private companies? To what extent can some “organizational hybridity” (Chadwick, 2007) be observerd ? - More broadly, do available theories and approaches in the field, such as the one on the “cartel party” (R.Katz and P.Mair) or the “cyber-party” (H.Margetts) cover the diversity of uses of digital tools within parties ? Do the words “political activism”, or “political engagement” mean the same thing with digital technologies ?

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