Two steps forward, one step back: the evolution of democratic digital innovations in Podemos

Meloni, Marco and Lupato G., Fabio (2023) Two steps forward, one step back: the evolution of democratic digital innovations in Podemos. South European Society and Politics, 27 (2), 253–278. (doi:10.1080/13608746.2022.2161973).

Record type: Article

Abstract

While the digitalisation of political parties is increasingly analysed, less attention has been paid to the evolution of digital procedures and their consequences on intra-party democracy and party change. We propose a typology for identifying different types of evolution processes (consolidation, reconfiguration, mutation, and elimination) using the Spanish party Podemos paradigmatic case. Our analysis points out the centrality of hard and soft setbacks in the evolution of the digital procedures of the party. Findings indicate the relevance of different dynamics, such as institutionalisation, personalisation, and factionalism, jointly
with other internal and external factors. Studying the evolution of digital party procedures is relevant for tracing party change in digital parties and other parties that are experiencing digitalisation processes.

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e-pub ahead of print date: 27 January 2023

Additional Information: Funding Information: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. M.M. acknowledges the Horizon 2020 project “The rise of citizens voices for a Greener Europe’ - PHOENIX” (Grant agreement n. 101037328) for supporting his research activity. We thank Sorina Soare for her insightful comments that greatly improved the earlier version of the manuscript. We thank the editors of South European Society and Politics - Anna Bosco and Susannah Verney - and the two anonymous referees for the relevant suggestions on our paper and the fruitful review process. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords: Digital party, Podemos, internal party democracy, movement party, party innovation, party institutionalisation, party organisation