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Digital Transformation as Organizational Change for Political Parties -a

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Digital Transformation as Organizational Change for Political
Parties – a narrative review

Abstract
Political parties as unique political organizations struggle with diverse challenges in digital
times. Digital transformation requires them to rethink and adjust their internal organization and
interaction with their socio-technical environments. By this, parties and researchers studying
them must adapt to the changed demands of members and supporters. This paper aims to
differentiate possible new areas for digital party research by accessing the recent literature in
three steps. First, this article links digital and party research under integrated digital party
research. This phrase encompasses the entirety of both worlds and encourages qualifying
parties' digital transformation. The second part examines possible digital party research areas.
Finally, the third part discusses relevant central areas for party research in the future. The main
results are centralized around how parties might adapt to digital by copying strategies of
movements which can be traced by integrated party research from a procedural perspective.

1. Introduction
This paper identifies and explores research fields on political parties in the digital sphere,
focusing on the European area. This endeavor aims to identify possible new and innovative
areas in party research linked to digital. This nexus is relevant because parties as interlinking
agencies between society and state must adapt to this transformation. Accordingly, this
research’s motivation is the state-of-the-art that party research lacks in overseeing digital
transformation as a procedural, transformative, and constructive power, functioning as a fight
for parties.
Focusing this attempt on European parties is relevant because Europe comprises established
democracies with high digitalization rates and various parties. Additionally, European parties,
inspired by the pirate parties (Cammaerts, 2015; Deseriis, 2019), had experimented extensively
with digital instruments before other parties even thought about the issue. On this basis, the
article differentiates future areas for integrated digital party research.
In the following, digitalization will not only be understood as purely technical but more broadly
as the dissemination and penetration of political spheres and lifeworlds by digital means and
channels (Wright, 2012). Moreover, Mergel and colleagues (2019, p. 11) define digital
transformation as even broader as their definition entails a "political organization's culture," its
"membership, and the connected mindset" to this. Their understanding contributes to the
following deliberations identifying and qualifying research fields on political parties in the
digital sphere by conducting a narrative literature review.
Following this, the literature covering the topic at question was approached by an
extensive literature study fueled both by keywords' searches in databases ("digital party,"
"digital parties," "party change," "party reform") and snowball co-citing of works in seminal
contributions. The counts found in databases are shown in Table 1.
This article summarizes the primary connections between the literature found in party
research and digital party research to suggest further exploration into this direction under the
umbrella of integrated digital party research.

1
Table 1: Keyword searches in databases.
Search terms Database Counts Comments
“digital party” Web of Science 8
Google Scholar 545 Includes Reviews
Worldwide Political 17 Includes Reviews,
Science Abstracts filtering on
(ProQuest) worldwide
political science
abstracts
“digital parties” Web of Science 9
Google Scholar 292 Includes Reviews
ProQuest 11 Includes Reviews,
filtering on
worldwide
political science
abstracts
“party change” Web of Science 187
Google Scholar 11.200 Includes Reviews
ProQuest 911 Includes Reviews,
filtering on
worldwide
political science
abstracts
“party reform” Web of Science 82
Google Scholar 8.380 Includes Reviews
ProQuest 428 Includes Reviews,
filtering on
worldwide
political science
abstracts

On this basis, this review article highlights areas and perspectives where party research
might overlap with digital transformation. Resulting, this contribution follows a three-fold
approach to entail the status of how parties deal with digital transformation: 1) Areas of
transformation, 2) relevant areas for future research, and 3) arguing for integrated digital party
research.

2. How Do Parties cope with Digital Transformation? An appeal for integrated

digital party research
The digital sphere builds a new environment for parties adding to the already existing
environments. Digital transformation as a process intensifies this as a social practice.
Therefore, a process-oriented perspective stresses that digital transformation also contains a
causal mechanism of environmental influence on parties. The argument is that digital
transformation functions both as an independent variable and as a process that creates and
performs social practice from within parties. For instance, demands clash between new and old
members with differing expectations towards how party work should be organized.

2
The suggested integrated digital party research approach focuses on established democracies
where parties struggle with maintaining the state and civil society's linkage.
However, parties wrestle to adapt to digital transformation as a massive, disruptive process
since, e.g., deep fakes allow individuals to strategically manipulate discourses in social
networks, especially when campaigning (Dommett, 2020). What comes on top is the need to
adapt various mediation services between state and society to continually changing
environmental conditions. Such surroundings imply that parties are especially subject to
challenges in the political system (Sartori, 1976). Parties stand out because of their unique
functions, such as recruitment of political leaders, political decision-making, participation,
articulation of interests, and mobilization. A few recent studies focus on how parties integrate
digital tools and mechanisms into their internal decision-making processes and this functional
sphere (Dommett et al., 2020; Schmidthuber et al., 2019; Thuermer et al., 2016). However, the
integration of different member groups, factions, or wings has always been achieved or
intended by parties, including disadvantaged people, has not been reached, and parties do not
resemble society. Accordingly, opportunities for parties created by digital transformation are
to empower and include disadvantaged (due to socioeconomic or other factors) or disabled
members and reach out to those uninterested in the virtual sphere. Reaching out refers to
persistent digital divides (regarding age, gender, income, and other socio-demographic factors)
posing obstacles to party members' engagement and participation (Ahrens & Knödler-Bunte,
2003; Correa, 2016; Min, 2010; Norris, 2001; Schradie, 2018).
Moreover, parties are professionals in addressing increasingly disparate and polarized
voter groups via election campaigns (Dreyer & Bauer, 2019; Garcia et al., 2015; Prior, 2013;
Wang, 2014). Especially Dreyer and Bauer (2019) show that reaching voters via diverse
campaign instruments is not overly greeted with sympathy. Besides, other studies highlighted
increased mobilization and commitment beyond election campaigns (Lilleker et al., 2017;
Neyazi et al., 2016; Segesten & Bossetta, 2017) and communication on political projects and
decisions in government work (Borucki, 2014; Waters et al., 2011)⁠. All these new and old tasks
and demands from the outside concern different subgroups of parties and levels of
responsibility (leadership, functionary level, basis⁠). Moreover, political parties deal with digital
transformation depending on their ideology and party system position. The latter’s concrete
form and its coupling with other organizations were recently called the “ecosystem” of a party,
consisting of supporting and allied organizations to the respective parties (Dommett et al.,
2020). Parties gain more attention, track their supporters, and raise funding and personnel
running for office within the ecosystem. One can argue that a lack of a functioning ecosystem
would lead to electoral failure and loss of significance in the political system.
Various experiments, e.g., on local virtual associations, have been used since the 1990s
to gather knowledge on dealing with 'new territory' in parties. However, a broader
understanding is lacking so far. Nevertheless, both from research and practice, it is still unclear
what consequences and effects introducing digital procedures and participation instruments
will develop for internal party organizations.

3. Digital transformation of parties as not so new field of activity of party research

This section connects party research concepts to digital approaches and, therefore, zooms into
the differentiations from above. The argument was that digital transformation research involves
different views on Internet use's effects on the political and social system. Through the
productive use of discursive spaces on the Internet, anyone can participate in political processes
(Kriesi, 2008). Also, empowerment as the activation of non-political people through
participation and political action like voting, demonstrating, or boycotting is likely to increase
(Lilleker, 2013; Scullion et al., 2013)⁠. These participation possibilities come up because digital
discourse spaces function independently from regulation by governance stakeholders. Such

3
spaces might unite hybrid-like between online and offline (Chadwick, 2013)⁠. The Internet and
platform media (i.e., Facebook, Google, and Twitter) represent immense political participation
potential. Online formats are seemingly inexpensive, fast, and location-independent, but this
would only benefit broad political participation in parties. However, the fundamental question
then arises as to what participation in parties in the digital society means.
Consequently, digital means may decentralize a previously existing centralized and
authoritative decision-making process and directly involve amateurs and career changers in
decision-making. Therefore, such a softening of power logic and hierarchy might imply
decentralization by digitalization. Resulting "will-building processes are organized 'bottom-
up,' i.e., from the base to the party leadership (...) and thus existing communication hierarchies
are dismantled" (Gerbaudo, 2019a, p. 4)⁠. The focus is on whether decisions brought up by
'amateurs' and 'career changers' without many years of experience in party work can be made
binding for the whole party. This opening-up is associated with a thinning of the power base
of the middle party elites (those people who manage the headquarters of parties often on
subnational levels). Their members, for these reasons, are logically also likely to oppose
introducing digital party-internal participation formats (Chiru et al., 2015; Chiru & Gherghina,
2017; Van Holsteyn et al., 2017).
Since the 'deliberative turn,' previous studies on political participation ⁠suggest new
types of expressive political behavior with discussions making decisions and associated
democratic innovations (Gastil, 2016; Gibson & Cantijoch, 2013; Lilleker & Koc-Michalska,
2016). Such forms happen in online forums and other platforms, i.e., demonstrations, sit-ins,
protests, online protests, and petitioning. These expressions happen at the micro-level, which
benefits those already well-situated to express their opinions and satisfy a particular individual
urge to present themselves. Parties open up to such deliberative and participatory instruments
building a hybrid democracy (with digital and analog elements) at the local level (Kersting,
2013)⁠. The so-called "digital deliberation" paradigm denotes perpetuating existing divisions
within parties and increasing the possibility for the power elites to monitor and control
membership. The likely shifts between democratic institutions, civil society, the Internet, and
parties are related to political parties' functional and representational change (Sartori, 1976, pp.
24–25)⁠. Parties perform rather expressive functions (Schmitter, 2001) in the digital society than
really democratizing their internal structure, as Paolo Gerbaudo (2019a) demonstrates. He
stresses that besides the vast possibilities to introduce internal deliberative platforms, parties
are organized strongly top-down (Gerbaudo, 2019a, p. 10).⁠ Therefore, following him,
introducing digital tools and platforms into parties has brought no real mobilization and
participation boost. Following Gibson et al. (2017) and Scarrow (2018), these functions
fundamentally affected by a shift towards digital are driven by the alternative participation
forms of members, functionaries, and outsiders such as voters with different suggestions for
future development⁠. Both works argue for the conclusion that a blurring of boundaries of
parties is inevitable. Such a blurring might also be caused by digital tools and instruments that
attract members and non-members or affiliates alike.
When looking at the representative function of parties, research (Hoffmann & Springer,
2019; Pedersen & Saglie, 2005) shows the following: Existing inequalities intensify in the
digital sphere. The comprehensibility of political decisions, also and especially via the Internet,
is complicated (Lutz & Hoffmann, 2017; Schradie, 2018). They are linked to this ideological
polarization of both the (Internet) population and the electorate due to social network use
increased (Del Vicario et al., 2016; Dylko et al., 2017; Prior, 2013; Steiner & Martin 2012)⁠.
Such issue-oriented polarization (i.e., the differentiation between left and right) is associated
with an organizational upheaval. Parties are going through an organizational disruption in the
face of digital transformation because this phenomenon functions transversely to previous
organizational structures and can penetrate previous organizational forms and principles.

4
However, to what extent such an organizational change works lies in the hands of the parties
and their decision-makers. Parties can anticipate the aspects of digital transformation both
internally and externally and are driven by and drivers of development.
Two research strands of party research are relevant when studying parties' digital
transformation. 1) Party change research and 2) party organization research. They both often
focus centrally on changes in organizational structures due to various causes through the lens
of party reforms. As a result, all areas (party change, party organization, party digitalization)
are intertwined and overlapping, as the following Figure 1 suggests.
First, party change research addresses questions of change primarily through
digitalization. Then, digitalization is seen as an effective external process transforming parties
while seeking effectiveness. Second, party organization research is relevant when assuming
that digital transformation does not merely trigger a causal process but directly affects party
organizations themselves. This causality calls for the perspective of environmental processing
approaches, interactionists, and neo-institutionalists looking at party reform. The third area,
uniting the two strands, is the digital transformation of parties. This transformation leads to a
platformization of internal party work. Following platformization affects candidate selection
procedures, internal elections, programmatic decisions, or thematic discussions formerly
organized by small local branches (Deseriis & Vittori, 2019)⁠. It is secondary here from which
direction the change impulse occurs (external or internal, such as shock or creeping). The extent
of digital transformation of decisions and decision-making processes about programs,
candidates, and strategies is relevant because of its linking to party organizational structure.
The last dimension is the power distribution and any power balance between leadership,
functionary level, and basis leading to bypassing such mid-level elites through social media
(Chiru & Gherghina, 2017)⁠.

Party organization
•Party Change
•Party Reform

Digital Transformation
of Parties

Figure 1: Merging of research strands into a new one. Own visualization.

Figure 1 illustrates the merging of the above-discussed research strands. The merging
means that digital transformation allows us to combine these research areas and subsume Party
Change and Party Reform as subfields of party organizational research.
Following Figure 1, the first-mentioned strand below Party organizational research,
party change research not only provides scenarios of doom and crisis but can also be of great
value for developing the field of “digital parties.” We should first consider works on party

5
reforms (Cross & Pilet, 2015; Gauja, 2017; Gibson, 2013; van Biezen & Poguntke, 2014)⁠. The
conceptual content also is applied to digital transformation. Reform is meant to introduce new
technologies, structures, staff, or other planned changes from leading parts of a party and have
a strategic impetus (Jun 2009, p. 188). Party reform is linked to party change but is limited to
the scope of how parties reform themselves. Reform occurs primarily due to changes in formal
structures, for instance, a change of statutes, the introduction of primary elections, or direct
elections of candidates (Bukow, 2014, p. 134)⁠. Especially when it comes to an additional
opening up of parties by digital means resulting in a change of membership structure, this area
is worthwhile for theoretical basing (Gerl et al., 2018)⁠. Party change as the other concept on
the arrow's top more broadly addresses changes of parties' programs, statutes,
institutionalization, and goals (Harmel & Janda, 1994).
Digitalization as a social practice permeates parties as political organizations and, under
certain circumstances, catalyzes social conditions in and from parties that have already become
effective in winning elections and governing. When we talk about digital party research at the
bottom of the arrow fuelled by digital transformation in parties, we always mean transformation
by parties. The perspective of assuming a transformation by parties is three-fold: 1) in
increasing intra-party digital platforms similar to or developed by commercial third parties. 2)
in the use of social networks both by the parties as organizations (Christopoulos, 2016;
Reichard & Borucki, 2015), and⁠ by the individual politicians themselves, and 3) an increasingly
professional design of communication outside the party (Gibson et al., 2017)⁠. These three
strands, digital party platforms, social network implementation into parties, and professional
design, have several implications: With a subsequent change in the party's organizational
culture, theoretical concepts of democracy, such as legitimacy, responsiveness, representation,
and credibility, are also transformed and supplemented by further dimensions (Jun et al., 2013).
In concerns of legitimacy, the acceptance of taken decisions, party members at all levels have
to make comprehensible and transparent decisions and communicate this process (Gauja, 2015;
Lilleker, 2005). The responsiveness, quality, and speed of a reaction to demands are also
centrally related. It entails the reaction to expectations and demands by citizens that parties as
actors in state and society, especially in the digital world, have of themselves – with the danger
of risking a loss of control and power (Borucki & Jun 2018, p. 32).

4. Systematic classification of the subject "digital transformation and political

parties"
As mentioned before, digital transformation does not stop at political parties. This alteration is
especially triggering parties because they, more than other organizations, stand at the center of
political events and public attention – especially of the mass media. Whether parties turn to
digital transformation or not, how they deal with it, and which instruments and practices they
apply here are still somewhat blind spots of the scientific debate about parties. Fitzpatrick
(2021) suggests a broad, complementary view on how parties migrate digitally. She proposes
five pillars in which parties move and adapt to digital environments. Accordingly, as mentioned
earlier, the perspective taken here focuses on existing theories of party organizational research
and systematizes these strands from a meta-organizational view. Digitalization as a general
process cannot be researched comprehensively. This multi-dimensionality initially requires
small-scale approaches and puzzle work, but not in the way in which the theory and method
formation of party research has operated up to now.
Furthermore, a vision for the already existing diversity in both areas is at stake without
conducting "hermetic" research (Wiesendahl, 2013, p. 47). As mentioned above, party change
and reform are parts of party organizational research. Therefore, all areas discussed next can
be subsumed to it, as Table 2 illustrates.

6
 Since the research within these areas is vast, the following deliberations concentrate on
party change, party types, and inner-party structures. Therefore, Party Change (Harmel &
Janda, 1994; Müller, 1994) is an overarching category depending on how it is operationalized:
As cause for change, as triggering external or internal momentum of change, or as a shock.
These three dimensions will now be elaborated more thoroughly in the following, led by Table
2 and its systematization.

Table 2: Presentation of party research's principal internal areas with sample studies and
meta-analyses on digital topics.
A) Party Change B) Party type Research: C) Inner-party structures,
Research: Theories Formulation of types organization (IPD) and reform

1 Environmental Evolution Models Ideology & policy position

Determinist (Beyme, 2002; Jun 2004) (Konig, 2018)
(Harmel & Janda, 1982)
2 Interactionists Party families Reform
(Harmel & Janda, 1994) (Jun & Höhne, 2011; Mair & (Gauja, 2017; Reichart-
Mudde, 1998) Dreyer, 2002)
3 Environmental processing Anarchical models Strategy development and
(Jun, 2004) (Schmid & Zolleis, 2005; formulation (Heimrich, 2013)
Weick, 1982)

4 New-institutionalists Hierarchical models Integration and participation

(Schmidt, 2008) (Caverly, 2014; Duverger, (Bieber, 2014; Lutz &
1954; Michels, 1911) Hoffmann 2018; Montigny,
2015)
5 Micro-politics Digital Parties and Platform
(Schmid & Zolleis, 2005) Parties as “new type” (Blasio
& Viviani, 2020; Gerbaudo,
2019b)
Meta Integrative approach: Digital Party: Organizational reform and
Environmental Integration of digital tools, transfer of internal party
processing, neo- platformization of interaction, decision-making instruments
institutionalism, and network logic, and low into digital form (e.g., direct
micro-politics. hierarchies. election of candidates,
adhocracy, digital platforms)

A) Party change research deals primarily with party change questions due to external
influences and shocks. This research branch was also referred to as "crisis science" and "party
decline." Furthermore, another perspective of change on parties is primarily concerned with
party-internal or party-dependent influences. These are the continuing loss and aging of
members. Plus, parties' losing milieu connection results in lesser legitimacy. This process is
entitled "crisis of trust, representation or legitimacy of the party-state" (Decker, 2007, p. 20)⁠.
This strand links closely to party systems research, the alteration of which is just as subject to
numerous changes as party structures. The predominant mode of the party (system)
change research is subordinate to an evolutionary model suggesting an evolution of parties.
Various approaches exist here, which Table 2 shows in area A. All five approaches presented
are searching for causes of exogenous and endogenous influences on the organizational
perspective of political parties (Wiesendahl, 2010, p. 47). However, these approaches are not
interlinked to answer parties' digital transformation questions. Accordingly, adaptation is
always self-made because parties can shape change, suggesting a turn towards process-oriented

7
theoretical bases focussing on underlying processes. Change, controlled by party leaders, is a
top-down event of internal party reform according to the interactive and the deterministic
environmental approach (Harmel and Janda 1982; Jun 2004). Schmidt's approach of discursive
institutionalism embeds an external "façade policy" (Schmidt 2008; Anstead & Chadwick,
2009)⁠. Some approaches go further in also including failure. These are the environmental
processing approach, the micro-political, and the anarchical organizational approach, by their
attempting to consider the entire lifeworld of a party and feedback processes. For the digital
transformation of parties, these approaches are vital since they enable an integrative approach.
B) Party type research: This necessarily subsumes work that deals with developing and
identifying parties through typologies, a classical political science research method. The
beginning of this confrontation with party types was undoubtedly at the end of the 19th century,
with the member and mass parties (Sartori, 2005b). Starting with the so-called "Volkspartei"
(Kirchheimer, 1965) or Catch-all party (Blyth & Katz, 2005; Wolinetz, 1991), a broad strand
of research within party research emerged. This strand is dedicated to the development of party
types. Empirical evidence shows fragmentation of this area of party research, especially
regarding characterizing a party as a type.
Recent developments in field B), party type research, treat the type of "digital party,"
"cyber party," or "anti-elitist cyber party" (Gerbaudo, 2019a; Hartleb, 2013; Margetts, 2006)
as an expression and manifestation of participation wishes in membership. These demands are
met by integrating digital platforms into parties' internal procedures that allow the base to
interact directly with the party leadership. For campaigns, the "digital party" means a strong
focus and base on and towards social media as distribution and interaction channels and data-
supported election campaigns (Dommett & Temple, 2018; Jungherr, 2016)⁠. Such a data-driven
styling is also associated with an internal opening of the parties to the platform media's
collaborative logic, independently of place and time (Van Dijck et al., 2018). Interestingly,
when searching for the digital party, there has been a vast increase in mentions in databases
during the last four years.
C) Although internal party organization and structures within parties have been studied
so far, internal party structures are particularly challenging to access (Scarrow et al., 2016;
Wolkenstein, 2018)⁠. Decision-making processes are well researched (Borz & Janda, 2020),
especially regarding how parties struggle with decision-making processes (van Biezen &
Piccio, 2013). The situation is different from implementing (digital) reforms and the related
coordination within the parties, especially in new parties like Podemos (García Lupato &
Meloni, 2021). Studies on the impact on membership development and inclusion in decision
processes are relevant here (Gauja, 2015; Sandri & Amjahad, 2015). They bring a perspective
on members' co-determination. An expansion of membership rights, including the associated
change in membership status, has inspired slightly less research (Scarrow, 2018). Such an
alteration of membership is always associated with the stubbornness and voluntariness in back-
links to softening respective milieus and the necessary calculation of party leadership.
Also, the study of other forms and types of political communication at the micro-level
has garnered more attention, especially politicians as well as the representation of politicians
and parties in social media (Bossetta, 2018; Klinger & Russmann, 2017; Lopez-Meri et al.,
2017; Valera-Ordaz et al., 2018). Most studies focus primarily on PR-oriented external
communication. They show that politicians and candidates themselves have the extent of using
digital technology, especially social media, in their hands. However, according to this research
direction's main argument, politicians have become ever more driven by the differentiated,
highly selectable, and selecting media environment (van Aelst et al., 2017). So-called media
management takes on a unique form when used in the sense of "political leadership." Then,
through personalization strategies, the people and their characteristics are emphasized in the

8
media as part of a communication strategy and indirectly conveyed through these people
(Langer, 2011; van Aelst et al., 2010).
However, the focus on election campaign management and possible changes through
social media obscures the perspective of everyday organizational life of and in parties. Namely,
the central question of how parties deal with digital transformation and integrate it into their
organizational structure as a social practice is neglected. Possible fields of activity at this
intersection can be seen in this respect above all in the intra-party anticipation of digitalization,
where so far, few researchers are active (Dommett, 2018; Dommett & Rye, 2018). One of the
reasons for this is that the parties have long ignored the development of the concept of intra-
party democracy (Bieber 2014). How are increasing demands for participation and cooperation
changing party structures? What are the effects of forms of digital cooperation at this point?
What consequences does this have for the development of a party? The following comes into
play when dealing with digital internal party decision-making and democracy. The
participation of members, supporters, or even sympathizers far beyond the mere introduction
of e-voting or online voting at party conferences and other similar decision-making events
should be considered with corresponding, possibly problematic democratic-theoretical
consequences (Lauer, 2004; Lutz & Hoffmann, 2017); such as the exclusion of weak interests
and other disadvantaged groups from party work (Kersting & Baldersheim, 2004). The central
question is how to integrate those weak interests and underrepresented ones (depending on the
party, the younger ones, women, or less well-off people). Divides can be sustained even in
social networks like Facebook (Lev-On & Haleva-Amir, 2016). The parties are called upon,
especially in the government position, to be skeptical towards digital innovations (Borucki,
2018).
Summing up the above-said, the digital transformation lies transversal to all topics and areas
and penetrates parties organizationally, technically, and socially. Thus, parties are affected by
content and personnel, making a transversal approach favored here as appropriate. It lies in the
interest of every researcher how she implements these subjects. Nevertheless, a neo-
institutionalist and integrative or environmentally processing perspective are suggested to
compare political parties' organizational reality with other political organizations and search
for best-practice examples also applying to parties (cf. Table 1). Furthermore, a comparative
analysis of the organizational culture (i.e., area C) in Table 1) of different parties would be
interesting at specific points in time. This comparison would show which strategies and
solutions exist for digitalization in the respective organizational reality and sub-area.

5. Future Research fields

This review article thematized the main fields in which parties deal with digital transformation
– and where they do not. It was argued that party research lacks in overseeing digital
transformation as a transformative power causing struggles for parties in several dimensions.
However, it became clear that this has been a particular research activity, mainly focusing on
election campaigns and individual phenomena. Therefore, the purpose of this article was to
identify possible new and innovative areas in party research dealing with digital by
concentrating on parties' structure, organization, and theory. Following this, developing
integrative party research as a meta-theme encompassing all dimensions of political parties is
desirable.
A systematic narrative review was pursued to address how party research and the digital
might benefit from each other, focusing on the most central areas. First, areas of transformation
were identified. Second, fields for future research were explored, and third, it was argued to
combine both in an integrative way. The integration was based on both party change and party
organization research, resulting in merging them. The systematic classification of this new,
merged field of digital transformation and political parties was diverged in several areas for

9
integration, picking out the three most interesting ones for further investigation. In the
following, learnings and conclusions for described future research fields will be sketched out
in three perspectives.
In the first perspective, connections between the party in public office and the
respective parliamentary groups' efforts to occupy digitalization as a policy field and recognize
digital means as an organizational reality are linked. For this purpose, the process-oriented
approaches to party change research, such as tracing party reforms (Michels, Borucki, 2020),
presented in the first part on party change, seem well suited because they allow empirical
insights into the inner life of the party. The argument is that digital transformation is a
procedural entity that creates social practice from within parties. For example, new members
in the party expect working and communication tools like Slack that they know from their
work-life, and parties have – in the worst case – no such tools. Simply put, one can say that
parties need to change from pull to push: They need to go to where the people are – also in the
digital realm.
The second perspective is a matter of research projects that take on movement-like
organizations and parties and investigate viable alternatives to parties. Alternatively, they could
examine how parties within their organizational structure use digitalization as a social practice
for inner-party democracy without exacerbating new exclusion and digital divides' problems
mentioned above. This exclusion also means adapting parties to digital platforms' logic and the
associated practices opposing classical party organizations (Tenscher & Borucki, 2015).
Platform logics are, for instance, networking, collaboration, virality, and connectivity.
In the third perspective, it would also be conceivable to include participation and
mobilization by and within parties more closely in research via digital channels and means.
Research on social movements and protest is far-reaching and fascinating (Kneuer & Richter,
2015; Sampedro & Mosca, 2018; Theocharis & van Deth, 2018). This research strand comes
from a narrow concept of operating and theoretically breaking new ground. Studies on the
environment in which new parties emerge, their milieus, and their origins are conceivable in
this area. These connect with the broad theoretical treasure from the preliminary works on Party
Change connected to theories on institutionalization stressing the worth of rules and norms in
formal and informal structures (Arter & Kestilä-Kekkonen, 2014; Basedau & Stroh, 2008;
Harmel et al., 2016; Harmel & Svåsand, 1993; Janda, 1980; Rose & Mackie, 1988).

The suggested comprehensive integrative view on parties helps understand their feedback on
the political system, i.e., their (re)growing into the state, connecting to the citizens and civil
society. The following learnings, conclusions, and questions can be drawn from these
deliberations:
We concentrated on integrated digital party research focusing on processes that might
help trace parties moving into the digital. However, a crucial question is whether parties as
political organizations can still adequately respond to the digital society's demands as central
communicators. A flow of organizations, persons, ideology, strategy, and communication,
maximizing digital contexts, is indispensable from a practical political point of view. Such a
process cannot be ruled without anticipated failure, primarily if party research takes a critical
stance on digital transformation and parties.
Exciting questions in this perspective would be: What are the reasons for the persistence
of parties towards introducing digital tools? Are there differences between parties in dealing
with digitalization, and what are the reasons for these differences? How can design options be
identified and exploited to deal with changes brought up by digitalization proactively? Such
changes can increase demands for transparency and responsiveness. Here, ruling parties would
be responsible for anchoring digital forms of participation within the parties in constitutional
law and enabling them to do so. Other solutions would be to systematically promote digital

10
participation formats in other political organizations and make instruments of e-government
available centrally, transparently, and openly. That said, the field of regulations of internet
governance and online campaigning needs another inquiry.

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