The Digital Party: Political Organisation And Online Democracy (digital Barricades: Interventions In Digital Culture And Politics)

From the Pirate Parties in Northern Europe to Podemos in Spain and the 5-Star Movement in Italy, from the movements behind Bernie Sanders in the United States and Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom, to Jean-Luc Melenchon's presidential bid in France, the last decade has witnessed the rise of a new blueprint for political organization: the digital party. These new political formations tap into the potential of social media to gain consensus, and use online participatory platforms to include the rank-and-file. Paolo Gerbaudo looks at the restructuring of political parties and campaigns in the time of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and big data. Drawing on interviews with key political leaders and digital organizers, he argues that the digital party is very different from the class-based “mass party” of the industrial era, and offers promising new solutions to social polarization and the failures of liberal democracy today. The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy 4 Contents 6 Series Preface 7 Acknowledgements 8 Introduction 10 The rise of the digital party 12 From Pirates to Momentum 16 The promise of online democracy 23 1 The Party Strikes Back 31 Beyond anti-party suspicion 33 What is a political party? 36 From the mass party to the television party 39 The neoliberal perversion of party democracy 42 Between democracy and oligarchy 45 The problem of bureaucracy 49 2 The People of the Web 52 The digital revolution and its connected discontents 54 Young, connected, broke 60 Claiming digital freedoms 64 Hacking democracy 67 Re-booting the economy 70 3 When the Party Mimics Facebook 75 Organisation in a digital society 76 Platform politics 78 The platformisation of the party 82 A hybrid party type 87 4 Participationism 90 Participation: from means to end? 91 Ceci n’est pas un parti 94 The pitfalls of participation 99 5 Death of the Party Cadre 101 Party HQ not found 103 Farewell party cell 106 No place for democracy? 110 6 Coding Democracy 114 The software of decision-making 115 LiquidFeedback and Loomio 121 Rousseau and Consul 124 The challenges of decision-making platforms 131 7 Plebiscitarianism 2.0 135 The management of online democracy 137 A limited deliberation 139 Digital acclamation 142 Online democracy betrayed? 150 8 The Hyperleader 153 No leader, no party 154 Caesar 2.0 157 The hyperleader’s job description 161 Founder, benevolent dictator, sockpuppet 168 9 The Superbase 171 The militant and the sympathiser 173 The return of mass political participation 175 The supervolunteer 180 The lurking supporter 183 Conclusion 186 Disintermediation and distributed centralisation 192 Hyperleadership and reactive democracy 194 The need for integration 196 Beyond the obsession with process 197 A political to-do list 199 Appendix 202 Notes 205 Bibliography 220 Index 227 From the Pirate Parties in Northern Europe to Podemos in Spain and the 5-Star Movement in Italy, from the movements behind Bernie Sanders in the US and Jeremy Corbyn in UK, to Jean-Luc Melenchon's presidential bid in France, the last decade has witnessed the rise of a new blueprint for political organisation: the 'digital party'. These new political formations tap into the potential of social media, and use online participatory platforms to include the rank-and-file. Paolo Gerbaudo looks at the restructuring of political parties in the time of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and campaigning based on Big Data. Drawing on interviews with key political leaders and digital organisers, he argues that the digital party is very different from the class-based 'mass party' of the industrial era. With new structures come worrying changes in political forms, such as the growth of power cliques and the need for centralised, charismatic leaders, the erosion of intermediary party layers and the loss of accountability. However, there is also a growth of strong unity at the centre and extreme flexibility at the margins, creating a promising template which could counter the social polarisation created by the Great Recession and the failures of liberal democracy How political parties have changed in the age of social media. 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. 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 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.

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. Looks at the restructuring of political parties in the time of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and campaigning based on Big Data. Drawing on interviews with key political leaders and digital organisers, Gerbaudo argues that the digital party is very different from the class-based 'mass party' of the industrial era. With new structures come worrying changes in political forms, such as the growth of power cliques and the need for centralised, charismatic leaders, the erosion of intermediary party layers and the loss of accountability. However, there is also a growth of strong unity at the centre and extreme flexibility at the margins, creating a promising template which could counter the social polarisation created by the Great Recession and the failures of liberal democracy. --From publisher description