Digital Intra-Party Democracy: An Exploratory Analysis of Podemos and the Labour Party.

This article examines the growing role of digital technologies in intra-party democracy (IPD) by applying empirical democratic theory dimensions to analyze two left-wing parties: Podemos, a new digital party in Spain, and the UK’s traditional Labour Party undergoing reform. Using five democratic principles—electoral, liberal, deliberative, participatory, and egalitarian—the study finds that digital tools most strongly impact aggregative procedures (electoral and participatory), while deliberative, liberal, and egalitarian dimensions are less developed or even reduced over time, particularly in Podemos. The findings support two hypotheses: first, that digital technologies have a differential impact on various democratic dimensions within parties; and second, that digital IPD practices in new and established parties tend to converge over time, with digital parties scaling back some digital initiatives and traditional parties adopting new ones. The article highlights the complexity of digital IPD’s effects on party legitimacy and calls for further research on its long-term implications.