This book analyzes how mainstream and new parties are building their digital platforms and transitioning from traditional (offline) organizations into the digital world.

The authors present an innovative empirical exploration of the democratic consequences and technical challenges of the digitalization of party organizations from a comparative perspective. They provide an original account of how party digital platforms are regulated and used, and a crucial discussion of the main technological and democratic issues that political parties face in their digital transition. Further, the authors assess the consequences of these digitalization processes for political participation and party membership, as well as the impact on party organizational models and electoral campaign potential. The book looks into one of the less-studied aspects of digital democracy, also presenting empirical evidence and case studies. It presents different parties and their adoption of digital participation platforms, from the Pirate Parties in Northern Europe to Podemos in Spain, La France Insoumise in France, the Five Stars Movement in Italy, or the German Greens.

Therefore, the book is a must-read for scholars of political science, policy-makers, and practitioners, interested in a better understanding of the transition of political parties into the digital world.

Provides the most comprehensive analysis of how digital party platforms work in Europe Presents the affordances and organization of digital party platforms in Europe Assesses the organizational challenges raised by new and mainstream political parties' migration into the digital world Discusses the technical and democratic problems faced by political parties' online decision-making systems

Autorentext

Oscar Barberà is an Associate Professor at the University of Valencia (Spain). His main areas of interest are party politics, decentralization, digitalization, and political elites both in Spain and Europe.

Giulia Sandri is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Lille (France). Her research focuses on party politics, digital politics, quality of democracy, and political behavior.

Patricia Correa is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Aston University (Birmingham, UK). Her research focuses on political parties, activism, digitalization, and territorial politics.

Juan Rodríguez-Teruel is an Associate Professor at the University of Valencia (Spain). His main areas of research are political elites, digitalization, and party politics.

Inhalt
Chapter I. Political Parties Transition into the Digital Era.- Chapter 2. The Five-Pillar Model of Parties' Migration into the Digital.- Chapter 3. Regulating i-voting within countries and parties.- Chapter 4. Studying Digital Parties: Methods, Challenges and Responses.- Chapter 5. I-voting regulation within digital parties: the case of Podemos and Five Stars Movement.- Chapter 6. Cyber-Parties' Membership Between Empowerment and Pseudo-Participation: The cases of Podemos and the Five Star Movement.- Chapter 7. Anti-Party Digital Parties between Direct and Reactive Democracy. The Case of La France Insoumise.- Chapter 8. How to remain indispensable in the 21st century? The digital adaptation of PSOE and PSP in a crisis context.