The paper is aimed at conceptualizing the ideological features of left-wing “digital” parties in three main domains challenged by the technological transformation occurring within capitalist societies: the nature of democracy, the principles of economic regulation, and the national/international balance as the space for political change.
In the last decade, the shift toward “platform capitalism” contributed to the emergence of two contrasting trends. On the one hand, it enhanced a reconfiguration of economic power through the rise of new monopolies and an increasing commodification of jobs. On the other hand, it provided new opportunities for citizens’ inclusion and participation through the platforms themselves. These trends set the scene for major struggles in Western democracies such as the ongoing weakening of the national state and the emergence of waves of protest that resulted in several effects such as the burst of a new type of political party labelled as “digital”. These evolutions starkly impacted on the left-wing politics as their mainstream actors have historically sought for a compromise between the spread of power to the bottom of society and the containment of popular demands with the institutions of liberal democracies. Though the substantive organisational features of the digital parties have been theorized by recent literature, their normative goals have been addressed to a less extent.
The nature of this study is exploratory: it aims at building new indicators for ideological positioning of left-wing parties in the landscape of digital evolutions. The paper is a comparative study of the ideologies of two cases addressed in recent literature as typical examples of the left-wing digital party: the Spanish Podemos, and La France Insoumise. I conducted a qualitative content analysis of their most recent electoral manifestos and leaders’ speeches held at parties’ national conferences. Then, I grouped the coded sentences into analytical categories within the selected domains.
First, my analysis highlighted for both parties a strong commitment to some forms of direct democracy and a certain difference in the spread of participatory democracy, quite strong for Podemos and instead weaker in the French case. Second, both parties claimed for some sort of Green Keynesianism sustained by a national development bank, but they appear quite vague at addressing the relevance of innovative enterprises. Third, both parties claim some radical change for European Union but Podemos’ goals are mainly focused on the change of the financial treaties, while La France Insoumise backs the necessity of restoring a strong national sovereignty and eventually the retreat from EU institutions.
Finally, a provisional conceptualization of left-wing digital parties can be characterized by the ideological uncertainties determined by three tensions: between participation and plebiscites, within the domain of the claim for direct democracy; between state-led economic management and the stimulus to innovative and social entrepreneurship; between restored national sovereignty and empowered international cooperation. This study will require further researches on an additional number of cases and can contribute to enhance the theoretical understanding of the role of the ideologies in the formation of political identities within the landscape of digital societies.
