Political Organizations in the Digital Age - When the Iron Law Meets the Digital Divide

This paper draws on two lines established in scholarly literature and builds the conceptual ground for more comprehensive research. In political science, Robert Michels discussed the mechanisms of complex organization structures as early as 1911, when he presented his Iron Law of Oligarchy, claiming that inner party democracy is destined to fail when an organization reaches a critical size. Complexity in administration, asymmetric power distribution and its tendency to stabilize segregate the organization's elite from the major body of its members. Scholars of both political parties and civil society organizations discussed the consequences of the Iron Law (Katovich et al. 1981; Leach 2005; Dewan and Myatt 2007; Papakostas 2011). However, the research on information and communication technology (ICT) in organizations and especially the Digital Divide have not been systematically linked - although few scholars are proceeding in this direction (e.g. Welser 2015). This paper seeks to identify consequences of the theoretical assumptions of the Iron Law of Oligarchy in combination with research on Digital Divide (e.g. Norris 2001, Schradie 2011). Following the research design of a pair comparison, two political parties of the same political system will be analyzed: the German Pirate Party and the SPD. The Pirates underwent a much-elaborated digital decision-making process trying to keep as many members engaged as possible (Liquid Feedback). Yet, they suffered losses and can be considered politically meaningless today. The SPD, a by far larger party that suffered major losses in recent elections, identified digitalization as one key aspect on their agenda trying to rebuild the party's structures and internal decision-making. The paper's overall goal is to identify crucial elements that have to be considered when parties try to step into the digital arena.