Following the success of Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008, European scholars have observed the world-spreading of the digital tools that supposedly contributed to his victory. From our investigation on the French field, we can establish that at least three different political parties - the conservative party (UMP), the socialist party (PS) and Europe-Ecologie (Greens) - were inspired by the Obama’s digital campaign. Its influence has for instance been materialized like in other European political parties by the creation of online social networks. In 2009, each of our three parties thus created their own social platforms, “Les créateurs du possible”, “La Coopol” and “le réseau social Europe Ecologie”, all inspired from the platform MyBarackObama. But this importation process seems particularly interesting to study within the French socialist party (PS). Barack Obama’s election indeed coincided with an internal election that made Martine Aubry the new head of the political organization in November 2008. Since then, M.Aubry has lead an internal policy of ”renovation” aimed at preparing the next presidential campaign, in 2012. This “renovation” was notably based on two main decisions: the creation of an internal think tank, Terra Nova, managed by the deputy Christian Paul and the nomination of a renovation secretary, Arnaud Montebourg. Two decisions directly linked with the adoption of technologies by the party: C.Paul is indeed known as the “geek” of the party while Arnaud Montebourg is? advised by the web consultant Benoît Thieulin. The renovation secretary’s work was decisively launched by a collective studying trip in the U.S. in December of 2008, with the goal of “learning from the Obama campaign”. The Terra Nova “mission”, co-organized with the think tank, resulted in “recommendations” that ultimately lead to several innovations within the socialist structure: 1. the Coopol’s creation 2.the adoption of the primary electoral system 3. A new strategy of voter’s targeting, materialized in doors-to-doors, online reporting practices in activism and a new interest in electronic databases.
Innovation or/and Americanization of the campaigning process? In this paper, I will address this double dynamic to understand the “modernization” process that took place between 2008 and 2011. It aims at examining on the one hand how the innovative practices have been introduced and appropriated by this political party and on the other hand what impact their introduction precisely had on the organization, in terms of internal hierarchy, activist practices and relationship with voters. We study the emergence of a new category of actors in the French electoral system: the political consultants specialized in the digital campaigning, here considered as the new “experts” of this field. We explore how they play a central role in the transnational circulation process of new digital campaigning patterns.
These two dynamics will be the two axis of my work: we will first investigate the “importation” of the American model and then question the “adoption” of digital campaigning patterns by the political party in the national election context.
