Party Members’ Digital Activities in Campaigning - Evidence from the recent German national election

The pandemic has imposed a digitalization thrust to political parties: they needed to hold digital party conferences instead of normal ones with personal gatherings and direct interaction. Also, coming to terms with digital activism and mobilization of supporters and voters is ever-increasingly difficult if those target groups cannot be met in person. Therefore, digital activism and campaigning has become crucial in terms of supporting parties by addressing their target groups adequately. Another dimension, a bottom-up perspective from the grassroots to the party elite allows theoretically to estimate the extent to which party members are included into campaign activities; and whether they wish to get involved digitally or refuse to do so. This article addresses party members’ digital activities during the general election campaign in Germany. The central question is, whether and how the digitalization of partisan work as facilitated or hampered interaction within party branches on several levels, and between individual party members. Assuming, first, younger party members’ being more enthusiastic about digital tools because they just recently joined a party than elderly ones, sheds light on sociodemographic dimensions. Second, the article then focuses on the interaction and intentions of members’ towards their party leadership on how to get involved. The study draws data from a party member panel study among four parties participating in the research project and contrasts this with general survey data on political participation.