The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy

by Paolo Gerbaudo

From the Five Star Movement to Podemos, from the Pirate Parties to La France Insoumise, from the movements behind Bernie Sanders to those backing Jeremy Corbyn, the last decade has witnessed the rise of a new blueprint for political organisation: the digital party.*BR**BR*Paolo Gerbaudo addresses the organisational revolution that is transforming political parties in the time of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Cambridge Analytica. Drawing on interviews with political leaders and organisers, Gerbaudo demonstrates that besides rapidly growing in votes, these formations have also revitalised party democracy, involving hundreds of thousands in discussions carried out on online decision-making platforms. Participatory, yet plebiscitarian, open and democratic, yet dominated by charismatic 'hyperleaders', digital parties display both great potentials and risks for the development of new forms of mass participation in an era of growing inequality. All political parties will have to reckon with the lessons of the digital party.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Social Science, Technology

231 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 14, 2018

Reviews

[Marisa]

Well written and researched. You could probably get the important parts from just the introduction and conclusion.

[Tony]

When a political party is as easy to join as a "like" on facebook or a share of a hashtag, what potential does that political party have to organize and effect change? Though the internet promises greater numbers of participants in the political process (imagine voting via the internet, not just for leaders - but for the policies those leaders champion) Paulo Gerbaudo warns that so far the internet has only provided hypercentralized, super powerful charismatic leaders and a generally passive superbase that doesn't actually organize, participate, or work together to accomplish anything. A great argument against the hyperindividualized, less structured, less organized version of democracy libertarians and internet activists fetishize. We need in person connection, we need leaders, we need representatives, and we need physical parties in order to organize properly.

[Tyler K]

Read for the Dig podcast's book club. Interesting analytical foray into the modern, digital political party (compared to the 'mass party' of the industrial era or the 'television party' of the neoliberal era). Would've liked more development in parts and found some of its arguments incomplete, but a good survey of a number of European parties on the left and right with many lessons to be drawn.

[Nikhil]

Only time will tell if Gerbaudo's observations will hold, but his analysis offers good explanatory value about the changing forms of organization and leadership for the past decade or so. From that perspective, this relatively concise book should be seen well especially when compared to the many other, often in my view weaker, explanations and analyses covering the same transformations in society and technology.

[Sara Rocutto]

È uno di quei tanti libri di sociologia politica che invecchiano un po’ male. Ma questo credo sia legato al fatto che raccontare la realtà e cercare di trovarne un filo conduttore non produca sempre un risultato buono.
Poi qui c’è della fiducia in questa idea dei partiti digitali che ha poco senso. Non so, forse un po’ come per la storia serve un po’ di distacco temporale per tratteggiare una situazione nel profondo…
(O forse è solo che in passato ho già letto troppe cose simili?)

[Alessandro Rossi]

Libro perfetto da integrare a studi universitari sul tema o per gli appassionati di politica e tecnologia, ottima la panoramica generale, perde nulla per strada.