“Party Politics in the Digital Age” – 28 September 2023

Abstract

Political parties are experiencing several transformations in the last two decades, as result of the impact of the digital revolution on contemporary societies. After the irruption of the so-called digital parties (Barberà, Sandri, Correa & Rodríguez-Teruel, 2021) and the digitalization of the traditional ones, we will discuss the concept of open parties (Villaplana, Megías & Sandri, 2023) across Europe. Are parties more transparent, participatory and collaborative? Do they promote or obstruct open government initiatives? A second part of the presentation will focus on how political parties are using online and hybrid voting in party primaries (Villaplana, Megías & Barberà, 2023) and in intra-party referendums, identifying their effects on internal participation. Finally, F. Ramón Villaplana will introduce some of his ongoing research on digital leaders with Dr Jasmin Fitzpatrick and on intra-party electoral integrity, concerning both in person, digital and hybrid ballots.

Ramón Villaplana is postdoc research fellow at ESPOL with a Margarita Salas Grant, funded by the Ministry of Universities of Spain and the European Commission (NextGenerationUE). He is developing the project ‘The transformations of political parties during the digital age’.