Digitalize… but how? Intra-party concerns about digitalization – the Czech case

At least since the end of the 1990s, we can observe a general tendency to digitalize political parties. This phenomenon has been reinforced by the COVID-19 pandemic. On the basis of our first insights (on the digitalization of parties' congresses) and of the enlarging literature on digitalization and digital parties, we broaden our focus on the question of this differentiated ongoing process. The main aspect we want to question is how parties coped and still cope with this crucial aspect of their continuous adaptation to changes in different parts of society. The basic assumption is that the parties must digitalize, and in many cases, this process is not only differentiated (from one party to another depending on some variables), but it is also a continuous process that is more or less deep but touches all the parties. The point is not only whether parties democratize (or not) thanks to or due to digitalization (by using new tools) but how they internally provide those changes, taking into account not only the necessity of innovation in a very rapidly changing world but also how they manage with their own members and try to avoid some problems, or eventually to minimize the impact of those problems. We think about the problem of the digital gap (in some parties more than in others, due to generational or financial reasons), but also how the parties tried to avoid a phenomenon of de-socialization of ranked members. The backbone of our study is a research done via questionnaire, combined with observation, and completed by interviews. The parties concerned are all the current nine Czech parties present at the Chamber of Deputies (on the basis of the 2021 general elections), completed by three others (ČSSD, KSČM, and the Greens). Our objective is to bring a new contribution to the qualitative research on the digitalization of political parties by focusing on the viewpoint of grassroots members and their experiences with digitalization.