As the number of Internet and social media users increases, political organisations such as CSOs, trade unions, NGOs, political parties, and governmental actors are moving and interacting more and more online. They now use social media to communicate public policy decisions, run campaigns, inform voters and members, and oversee their organisation. The hope is that through digital tools, these intermediaries are empowered to reach more established and new supporters at a lower cost, provide more targeted messages and reduce barriers to becoming active within the organisations, especially within parties.
Despite, for instance, political parties’ growing use of online tools and platforms, research on the existing and appropriate regulation design on how parties can and should act online is minimal. Scandals like Cambridge Analytica or the M5S privacy and democratic issues with its internal party platform show that such regulations are crucial if parties use online tools to enhance democracy and empower people towards political participation rather than further decline trust and membership in intermediary organisations, such as trade unions, churches, SCOs, and political parties. The change in this intermediary system due to the digital transformation also affects public policy and administration in how rules and practices are institutionalised and processed within decision-making cycles.
This Research Topic sets out to establish state of the art on the scope and impact of digital policies, rules and practices on political organisations and their digital ecosystem. This entails uncovering informal practices within and beyond said organisations of the intermediary system and how they are influenced by, and might influence, public policy and administration as parts of the executive system. This approach enables to include perspectives on rules and practices at the intersection of informal and formal policymaking and will provide crucial insights beyond academia for political parties and public policymakers.
We solicit theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions based on case studies or quantitative and qualitative integrated comparative approaches. We aim to address the questions outlined below and bring together scholars from different disciplines, such as political science, public policy and administration, law, communication and media studies, and computer science, at the intersection of computational social sciences.
This Research Topic aims to address this gap and bring together contributions that study the impact of digital policies, rules and practices on political organisations and their digital ecosystems. We welcome papers addressing the topic from a variety of perspectives, including but not limited to the following questions:
- How do we conceive the intermediary system as a changing ecosystem in the digital transformation? What does a change of this system mean for political organisations’ transition to the digital?
- Are there different approaches and adaptations to digital policies by means of the origin of political organisations? Can we identify different strategies and changes within digital ecosystems varying between SCOs, parties, trade unions, and other organisations?
- Which effects and impacts do these changes have to the internal formation of will creation in said organisations and how does this affect democratic functioning and representation?
- How existing regulations on the national and European levels, such as the EU Digital Service Act, concern parties and, if so, how these regulations impact their activities online?
- What is the current state of regulations of political parties online on the national level, and what aspects are regulated (campaigning, party finance, internal decision-making, etc.)?
- How effective are these regulations and can they be motioned and enforced?
- How do regulations contribute to safeguarding or even enhancing democracy?
- How is the democratic role and functioning of parties affected by such regulation?
- How should states and the EU regulate parties online?
As the number of Internet and social media users increases, political organisations such as CSOs, trade unions, NGOs, political parties, and governmental actors are moving and interacting more and more online. They now use social media to communicate public policy decisions, run campaigns, inform voters and members, and oversee their organisation. The hope is that through digital tools, these intermediaries are empowered to reach more established and new supporters at a lower cost, provide more targeted messages and reduce barriers to becoming active within the organisations, especially within parties.
Despite, for instance, political parties’ growing use of online tools and platforms, research on the existing and appropriate regulation design on how parties can and should act online is minimal. Scandals like Cambridge Analytica or the M5S privacy and democratic issues with its internal party platform show that such regulations are crucial if parties use online tools to enhance democracy and empower people towards political participation rather than further decline trust and membership in intermediary organisations, such as trade unions, churches, SCOs, and political parties. The change in this intermediary system due to the digital transformation also affects public policy and administration in how rules and practices are institutionalised and processed within decision-making cycles.
This Research Topic sets out to establish state of the art on the scope and impact of digital policies, rules and practices on political organisations and their digital ecosystem. This entails uncovering informal practices within and beyond said organisations of the intermediary system and how they are influenced by, and might influence, public policy and administration as parts of the executive system. This approach enables to include perspectives on rules and practices at the intersection of informal and formal policymaking and will provide crucial insights beyond academia for political parties and public policymakers.
We solicit theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions based on case studies or quantitative and qualitative integrated comparative approaches. We aim to address the questions outlined below and bring together scholars from different disciplines, such as political science, public policy and administration, law, communication and media studies, and computer science, at the intersection of computational social sciences.
This Research Topic aims to address this gap and bring together contributions that study the impact of digital policies, rules and practices on political organisations and their digital ecosystems. We welcome papers addressing the topic from a variety of perspectives, including but not limited to the following questions:
- How do we conceive the intermediary system as a changing ecosystem in the digital transformation? What does a change of this system mean for political organisations’ transition to the digital?
- Are there different approaches and adaptations to digital policies by means of the origin of political organisations? Can we identify different strategies and changes within digital ecosystems varying between SCOs, parties, trade unions, and other organisations?
- Which effects and impacts do these changes have to the internal formation of will creation in said organisations and how does this affect democratic functioning and representation?
- How existing regulations on the national and European levels, such as the EU Digital Service Act, concern parties and, if so, how these regulations impact their activities online?
- What is the current state of regulations of political parties online on the national level, and what aspects are regulated (campaigning, party finance, internal decision-making, etc.)?
- How effective are these regulations and can they be motioned and enforced?
- How do regulations contribute to safeguarding or even enhancing democracy?
- How is the democratic role and functioning of parties affected by such regulation?
- How should states and the EU regulate parties online?
