Digital Disruption and Political Organization: Evidence from Australian Parties and Interest Groups

As political organizations, political parties and interest groups face a similar set of organizational challenges. Given their voluntary nature, key among these challenges is securing the ongoing support, involvement and participation of their base/core constituency. In this paper, adopting a supply-side perspective, we examine the disruptive affect of digital technologies on the way political organizations resolve this challenge. Traditional organizing models emphasized the importance of identifying a well-bounded closed constituency, and recruiting as many as possible of these individuals into membership. The well-documented professionalization of many political organizations has arguably hollowed out membership, replacing active membership with staff driven agenda setting. The advent of digital technologies has disrupted this neat trajectory, offering political organizations the opportunity to rework relations with their base. Indeed, some argue that it offers a way to rework what constituency and membership means altogether. In this paper we examine the challenges and opportunities that such disruption offers political organizations through an empirical exploration of parties and interest groups in Australia. In so doing, our broader aim to contribute to the further development of the sub-field of political organizations.