Socio-political consequences of the digital revolution: a new cleavage?

This paper proposes a theoretical framework regarding the potential emergence of a new cleavage induced by the digital revolution. Traditionally, party systems have changed due to large processes such as the industrial revolution or, more recently, globalization. We argue that digitalization constitutes a similarly profound technological change, affecting society and, consequentially, politics. Technological change induced by digitalization has already led to myriad regulations, transnational legal frameworks and jurisprudence in just about every corner of the world. Novel challenges and opportunities of digitalization increasingly enter the political arena. To what extent can the digital revolution (and subsequent politicization thereof) lead to the emergence of a new cleavage? We theorize that if objective conditions that predict how one is affected by digitalization (i.e. labour market position, education, digital skills) align with subjective identifications (e.g. perception of gaining or losing from further digitalization of society, aligning social identities), this provides fertile breeding ground for a nascent political conflict between what we conceptualize as “winners” and “losers” of digitalization. Our theoretical considerations are complemented with original focus group data and exploratory analysis of cross-national survey data. We discuss to what extent we can observe the start of a socio-structural divide – with potential for further politicization – caused by the digital revolution in Western societies.