THE PARTY-IN-THE-NET: THE DIGITAL FACE OF PARTISAN ORGANIZATION AND ACTIVISM

In this article we theorize a new organizational face of political parties that we term the ‘party-in-the-net’, defined as an array of digital partisan activist roles enabled by the affordances of digital technologies and the consolidation of a hybrid media system. We first explain the virtues of understanding parties’ intertwinement with digital affordances as an organizational face rather than as a specific party type or mode. Then, we outline a typological framework for approaching the party-in-the-net and its links with ‘traditional’ party bureaucracies and functions. We distinguish eleven different digital partisan roles on the basis of two general organizational variables, namely functional alignment with party structures and influence over core party decisions. Finally, after defining, discussing, and illustrating each of these roles through examples across Europe, the Americas, and Asia, we consider how the typology can help scholars to scrutinize and nuance the ways in which parties’ digital face intersects with more traditional patterns of political participation and engagement.