Abstract
Over the past decades, digital technologies have developed into tools of political deliberation and decision-making by the state and parties alike (Chadwick, 2007, 2012; Koc-Michalska & Lilleker, 2016). However, while some states developed strict rules on how to regulate and govern the use of internet devices in electoral affairs, online voting or referendums, it is not clear to what extent such regulations also exist to govern online decisions within political parties. In order to address these questions, the chapter bridges previous literature on digital politics, state electoral regulation and party organisations. The chapter explores how e-decision-making (mainly i-voting) is regulated in a sample of digitalized parties in two European countries (Italy and Spain) and to what extent these respect democratic norms and incorporate technical aspects. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how national-level regulations can be transferred into the intra-party context and what lessons can be learned from the discussed case studies to facilitate successful introduction of e-decision-making.
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Notes
- 1.
For a methodology to estimate e-voting costs, see Krimmer and Dueñas-Cid (2018).
- 2.
Contrary to Liquid Feedback, Rousseau is not endowed with a delegation system. It only allows users to give suggestions or instructions to party elites, but not to receive delegations. Rousseau is designed to centralise and de-materialise several political processes that are usually managed separately within a traditional party, such as candidate selection and forms of collaborative lawmaking (Deseriis, 2017).
- 3.
Online votes are also organised at regional and local levels. Overall, 227 online ballots were organised between 2012 and 2019: 156 national, 49 regional and 22 local ones (see the chapter by Biancalana and Vittori in this book).
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von Nostitz, F., Sandri, G. (2021). i-Voting Regulation Within Digital Parties: The Case of Podemos and Five Stars Movement. In: Barberà, O., Sandri, G., Correa, P., Rodríguez-Teruel, J. (eds) Digital Parties. Studies in Digital Politics and Governance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78668-7_5
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