Giulia Sandri and Oscar Barberà guest speakers in a virtual round table at the Masarykova Demokatická Akademie (Czech Republic) on "Digitalization of Political Parties, International Experiences".
The round table, organised by the Masarykova Demokatická Akademie, was also sponsored by the Ebert Foundation and the youth of the Czech Social Democratic Party.
Roundtable program:
6pm – Opening
Urban Überschär, Director of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Czech Republic
Vladimír Špidla, Director of Masaryk Democratic Academy
6.10pm – What we want to know about the digitalization of politics
Lukáš Ulrych, President of Young Social Democrats (Czech Republic)
6.15pm – Panel I: What is meant by the digitalization of political parties
Daniel Šárovec & Michel Perottino: Notes on the digitalization of political parties
Daniel Šárovec and Michel Perottino will discuss the starting points of the digitalization of political parties. The main research challenge remains the fact that digitalization consists of many dimensions that need to be adequately distinguished from each other in the analysis. The process of digitalization itself is linked not only to the functioning of the party organization, but also, among others, to the internal functioning of the political party and its self-promotion.
Giulia Sandri: The digitalisation of political parties in comparative perspective
https://www.youtube.com/embed/mB_aLzKQYYk
Through the study of a wide range of political parties from Europe and beyond, our upcoming book (“Digital Parties – The Challenges of Online Organisation and Participation”, New York, Springer, Forthcoming 2021, edited with Oscar Barbera, Patricia Correa and Juan Teruel) explores the different degrees of digitalisation of contemporary political parties. We also explore the main technological and democratic issues and trade-offs that political parties have faced in their digital transition. The most relevant finding is that all political parties operating in the democracies analysed have digitalised their organisations to some extent. Our empirical cross-country analyses shows that the digitalisation of parties does not entail a homogenous process of convergence towards a new mode of managing party organisations. Instead, the spread of digitalisation is producing substantial differences among forces in both the degree and the pattern of implementation of ICTs in intra-party functioning. Hence, it is particularly important now to further explore how the large, mainstream, traditional parties are dealing with ICTs and how they adapt to this digital transformation. Furthermore, our next steps in comparative digitisation research will focus on identifying general patterns of digitalisation, going beyond those parties more specifically committed to the new ICT tools.
7.15pm – Panel II: Digitalization of political parties in practice
Oscar Barberà: The digitalisation of left-wing political parties in Spain
https://www.youtube.com/embed/_mBiyXtMBjA
Some Spanish new political parties such as Podemos have been extensively analysed for their pioneer use of digital technologies in their internal communication or decision-making procedures. Leadership and candidate selection, policy development, etc. have been fully digitalized in Podemos. However, what seemed a new, more horizontal and engaging way of political participation has been largely criticised for their plebisticarian effects (e.g. Gerbaudo, 2018). That said, Podemos is not the only Spanish political party implementing a radical democratization agenda. The paper will discuss first how some of the main left Spanish parties are coping with digitalization. Then, it will try to qualitatively assess what are the main consequences so far.
Michael Rüter: Digitalization of German Social Democrats
SPD is the biggest German political party, with a long and rich history. It now faces the challenge of digitalizing their internal party structure and communication, but also improving its image in the digital world. What path has the party taken and what experience does it have? And how has the process of digitalization been affected by the coronavirus pandemic?
Speakers (bios)
Daniel Šárovec is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Political Science, Institute of Political Studies, Charles University, where he previously worked as a research assistant. He focuses on new political parties, which is also the topic of his dissertation. He is also interested in different aspects of digitalization of political parties.
Michel Perottino is an associate professor and Head of Department of Political Sciences, having held different positions at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University since 1999. He is a specialist on French politics and, since the late 1990s, he has been interested in Czech political parties and the theory of political parties.
Giulia Sandri is an associate professor at the Lille Catholic University and a research fellow at CEVIPOL Université Libre de Bruxelles. Her research focuses on the party and digital politics and political behaviour.
Oscar Barberà is an associate professor at the University of Valencia. He is an expert on party politics, digitalization, political elites and decentralization. His current focus is on the impacts of digitalization on political parties.
Michael Rüter is a campaigning expert of the German Social Democrats.
More information on the website of the Masarykova Demokatická Akademie
