Intra-Party (digital) Deliberation: the case of Podemos and the UK Labour Party platforms

In recent decades, political parties have developed new digital procedures to improve their intra-party democracy, aiming at regaining legitimacy and support. Many of these processes and tools have relied on the aggregative dimension, which includes primary elections and other voting mechanisms in the party's decision-making processes, such as referenda. On the other hand, other procedures have tended to focus on debate and the process of reaching a party decision or position, applying the deliberative principle to digital technologies. In this context, our research compares the digital platforms for deliberation of two national political parties: Plaza Podemos (Podemos Square), developed by the Spanish party Podemos (2014-2019), and the Labour Policy Forum (2016-today) promoted by the British Labour Party. While these procedures could offer arenas for political deliberation to members and/or citizens and opportunities for reflexive control by citizens, they have generally been disconnected from party decision- making and have experienced significant backlashes. Overall, this research provides insights into the potential and limitations of digital deliberation in the context of political parties.