Digitalization of Political Parties in Poland: Between Law and Practice

Abstract

Analysis of political parties’ digital adaptation is a rapidly growing field of research that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study of seven political parties in Poland, using the operationalization proposed by the DIGIPART project, provides information on the specifics of the external and internal use of digital tools in a young democracy. The main sources of data for the dataset are party websites, apps, social media and online participation platforms, which have been subjected to qualitative content analysis. The analysis confirms that the digitalization of parties is more advanced in external dimensions that directly connect parties with voters (the communication and resources pillar) than in dimensions related to internal party procedures (the electoral, deliberative and participatory pillar). The use of digital tools is influenced more by the level of intra-party democracy and the party’s distance from the centre on the right–left axis than by age or party size.