How new parties institutionalize in the Digital Age

This paper adds to the discussion of party formation and institutionalization, on activism, political participation and political mobilization on the internet. We argue that the objective, internal and external institutionalization of a new political party depends on its type of formation and its origin before entering parliament. Moreover, a party’s institutionalization advances differently in those three dimensions depending on its origin as primarily digital (internet-based or internet-supported in or via platforms) or primarily conventional (at most technology-shaped). We develop a distinction between six different configurations of party formation in these two worlds that are characterized by either (a) formation by individual entrepreneurs (digital/conventional entrepreneurial newcomer) or that (b) have been promoted by existing movements (digital/conventional rooted newcomer) or (c) include aspects of both formation types (digital/conventional rooted entrepreneur). We illustrate the usefulness of our conceptual distinction in a cross-country analysis of new parties in the 28 EU-member states (2005-2021) and find that the group of the rooted newcomer parties shows the biggest gap in terms of its persistence between an internet-based/internet supported party and a conventional party. We, therefore, focus on two parties of this group: The Swedish Pirate Party and Greek Syriza.