Reforming political party organization in the XXIst century. On the transformative effect of network parties on modern representative democracy

• Autores: Maria Haberer
• Directores de la Tesis: Ismael Peña López (dir. tes.), Antonio Calleja López (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya ( España ) en 2022
• Idioma: inglés
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Paolo Gerbaudo (presid.), Rosa Borge Bravo (secret.), Andrej Holm (voc.)
• Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Sociedad de la Información y el Conocimiento por la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
• Materias:
  • Ciencia política
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: O2 Repositori UOC
• Resumen

  • One of the main pillars of the current crisis of Western democracies is the continuous and deep erosion of public trust in institutions which has resulted in a widening gulf between political parties and their electorates. Emerging from the global economic crash of 2008, a new wave of political parties have set new trends for party organiza- tion, criticising the prevailing representative model as inadequate in terms of democratic substance. Influenced by recent networked social movements such as the Arab Spring and the Spanish 15M Indignados movement, these parties aim at reforming the role and function of the political party as a vehicle between citizens and the State by adopting the normative values of participatory and deliberative democracy. Also the promising place of DDDPs (digital deliberation and decision-making platforms) in party organization and practices informs their views on how intra-party democratic standards can be reformed and renewed for the better.

    This thesis contributes to a better understanding of current representative political parties, critically engaging with their merits through the lens of the Network Society. It draws on five case studies in order to flesh out the nuances of the network party type. I review the genealogy of party types, advancing the existing literature on a broad range of party types, from mass- to the catch-all party, as well as filling in the gaps related to network party type. Firstly, I argue that the crucial novelties brought on by network parties’ are explicit in the following characteristics: A vision of expert-citizen democracy and ‘strong’ participation, a desideratum of openness and transparency, an alignment to ‘disintermediation’ and the revision of the concept of representation and an organizational vision of permeable intra-party democracy. Drawing on the five case studies, I then identify sub-types of network parties - the procedural, the plebiscitary and the municipalist.

    Based on this conceptual framework, the thesis provides an in-depth study of three selected cases - the Pirate Party Germany, Podemos and Barcelona en Comú. I re- view commonalities and differences in organization, discourse and practice of these examples. Whereas the Pirate Party Germany can be described as a radical project that has tried to reimagine party organization through cyber-libertarian lenses, Podemos has made use of a populist rhetoric and seems to regress into the classic catch-all party type. While these parties tried to scale up into national parties, Barcelona en Comú worked on an urban scale. Its story depicts how the concept of the network party goes beyond party organization and shapes institutional politics from below.

    While discussing the potential of network parties to transform Western democratic polity, I note that network parties often face their own contradictions in holding up to their values on one side and entering the electoral scene on the other. In light of this, the thesis concludes that network parties might be interpreted as a transient phenomenon. However, their values and practices are influencing and sparking further processes of democratizing political institutions and the State.