The Networks

DPRN – Digital Parties Research Network

This network’s aim is to analyse political parties in the digital age. The main overarching questions are to what extent is there such thing as “digital parties” and if so, what is it and how does it differ from other parties. Furthermore, the degree of (organisational) transformation (or lack of it) of parties in the digital age is a focus of the network.

Structure

The network currently consists of about 40 scholars covering almost 20 countries both in EU and beyond. It brings together researchers with diverse backgrounds in terms of origin, career and expertise in fields including party studies, elections, law, regulations, communication and ICTs. The Digital Parties Research Network also collaborates with civil society actors such as Transparency International.

Aims: Publication for academics and practitioners, work with parties, voters, state agencies and civil society actors.

Organisation and Members

The network and its activities are coordinated by two co-chairs and a steering committee.

Chairs

• Michał Jacuński, University of Wroclaw, michal.jacunski(at)uwr.edu.pl
• Giulia Sandri, Université Libre de Bruxelles Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, giulia.sandri(at)ulb.be

Steering Comittee

• Isabelle Borucki, Universität Duisburg-Essen, isabelle.borucki(at)uni-due.de
• Oscar Barberà, Universitat de València, o.barbera(at)uv.es
• Jasmin Fitzpatrick, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, fitzpatrick(at)politik.uni-mainz.de
• Felix von Nostitz, Université Catholique de Lille, Felix.Vonnostitz(at)univ-catholille.fr

Members

Working Groups

The Digital Parties Network is structured around 5 Work Packages.

WG Participation

This WG aims to explore the impact of digitalisation on political participation both within parties (IPD) and more widely. It develops a systematic and comparative approach to study how party organisational digitalisation impacts (or not) the participation by party members and supporters. More specifically it looks at which digital participatory tools are used by different parties, in which contexts and who participates online, how and their attitude towards these new digital possibilities.

WG Communication

This group is looking at internal and external web-based communication processes of parties. Perspectives include case studies, however, the focus is on comparisons: party families, regions, new vs. established parties etc. The aim is to identify different stages and types in adaptation of web-based technologies.

WG Finance

The Finance WG looks at the impact digitalization has on party financing such as changes in the origin of financial resources and increase or reduction of costs of party activities. In particular it aims to outline how digital technologies opened new scenarios for parties’ in terms of online fundraising, spending (online platforms, campaigning, communication and staff) and investing. It also asks what are the effects of digital financing on equilibria between public and private funding, transparency and corruption.

WG Organisation

This WG aims at monitoring the effects of digitalization focusing on two main aspects: (1) the digital staff and the management of digital crowds within parties and (2) the decision-making process transformations linked with digitalization. The aim is to identify patterns of parties that might develop in the EU in the upcoming years, and whether this might reinforce or threaten the European democracy, as a political system and as a set of values.

WG Mapping Party Digitalisation

In cooperation with the other WGs this group aims to develop a common framework to map digitalisation across different dimensions that impact directly on party functions, including organization and IPD, internal and external communication, participation and finance. It aims to address the current lack of a shared theoretical definition and cross-national comparisons in many of the current studies on party digitalization.
Moreover, we also aim to study the digitalisation of different aspects of the party: in public office, in central office and on the ground. Further, we ask how digitalisation impacts key democratic dimensions such as participation, representation, competitiveness, accountability and transparency. In order to do so, we are developing a common framework to explore the aspects above in a comparative manner. Moreover, we also look at individual “best” (Estonia, Switzerland) and “worse” (M5S, UMP Paris) paratactic case studies.

EISA

EISA, the European International Studies Association, was founded in 2013 by former members of the Steering Committee of the Standing Group on International Relations (SGIR) of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). The association was created to increase the range of activities and opportunities available to members of the international studies community and to this end, works alongside other international studies associations, to advance the field and its scholars. The association is committed to innovation, intellectual advancement and inclusivity, and exists to promote and advance the interdisciplinary field of international studies in Europe and beyond. As a member-driven association, EISA provides a range of innovative events, from small-scale symposia for exploratory projects to the flagship Pan-European conferences, where scholars and practitioners from around the world can discuss the latest developments in the field.

ESPOL and the ICL have been chosen to host EISA 17th Pan-European Conference (PEC) from 27 to 31 August 2024, which will be the very first time this event takes place in France.

CONFERENCE THEME: “SEARCHING FOR INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: SPACES, STYLES, STRUGGLES”. ‘The international’ is no longer exclusively thought of as a separate sphere characterized by interactions between states. But if ‘the international’ is not simply ‘up there’ or ‘between states’, then where does it happen? With this spatial inquiry emerges a series of epistemological and methodological considerations on what counts as knowledge about the international and how it is created. Moreover, whose struggles, work, and sacrifices matter for the study of the international? In raising these interconnected questions, the EISA PEC2024 invites participants to join a collective search for the international. By attending to the spaces, styles, and struggles that reinvigorate international relations, the theme acknowledges the risks taken to find the international in diverse and unexpected places as well as efforts to challenge the status quo and transgress disciplinary boundaries.

ECPR

ESPOL is an institutional member of the European Consorium for Political Research (ECPR), the leading European academic association with a mission to advance political science founded in 1970. The key objective of ECPR is to ‘break down the barriers between the national traditions of the discipline and create a truly international community of scholars within Europe…’ (Jean Blondel and Stein Rokkan). The association has over 300 institutional members in nearly 50 countries, which amounts to a global community of tens of thousands of scholars.

GIS Eurolab

ESPOL is a founding member of the Euro-Lab Scientific Interest Group (GIS), a network of 27 partner establishments, which involves more than 70 research units in France. This network brings together researchers, teacher-researchers, doctoral students and students who are interested in questions relating to the European Union.

The Euro-Lab intends to meet five major objectives: 

1. Give visibility to individual and collective work produced in different universities, research centers, on the European Union in the broad sense; because the GIS does not intend to exclude any discipline from the Human and Social Sciences. This could involve the creation of a directory, a website, in order to open these research results to a less academic audience. 
2. Promote the circulation of information to the public and between members of the GIS in order to break down this information between disciplines. 
3. Create a scientific space for exchange for young researchers, and thus facilitate their access to data and research results, but also ensure support for these young Europeanist researchers. 
4. Monitor the work that will be done and help reflect on the state of research and teaching on the European Union, through the implementation of a Research White Paper.
5. Contribute to the public, national and European debate, by establishing regular links with European political actors, by contributing to the international visibility of French Europeanist research through the creation of a Blog.

The Institut Pour la Paix (IPP)

The Institut Pour la Paix (IPP – Institute for Peace) is an association under the 1901 French law, founded in 2022, which aims to introduce and promote Peace studies in the French-speaking, European and international space. The particularity of the IPP resides in the importance given to dialogue between its academic circle and the military, political and activist worlds. This dialogue takes the form of a research and research-action space that aims to explore and better understand the other’s field of action. The IPP also aims to be a space that works to develop new teaching content that approaches peace from the broader point of view of conflict transformations.

SPRING: Sport and Politics Research International Network Group

The Tokyo Olympics in July and August 2021 highlighted how sport and politics mix, with issues around issues such as race, gender and nationalism – and of course the controversy about the role of sport at a time of a huge public health crisis.

SPRING, the Sport and Politics Research International Network Group, was officially founded on 22 October 2021 to analyse how sport interacts with issues of politics. Its founding symposium « Global Issues and Sport » paved the way for exporing the questions of climate change and greenwashing in sports, of sports and human rights, of sports and globalisation, and other topics.

UACES

ESPOL is an institutional member of UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies), the global membership organisation for academics, students and practitioners who are interested in all aspects of Europe and the European Union. 

UACES’ principal activities include the organisation of events and conferences, funding opportunities for members’ research activities, collaborations in publishing books and journals and supporting research networks.

ESPOL and the ICL were chosen to host the 52nd UACES Annual Conference in Lille from 5 to 8 September 2022. Some 300 researchers attended this event dedicated to New directions for the future of the EU.

JOURNAL

ESPOL financially supports the scientific journal Politique Européenne, published in French.

The journal, whose publication began in 2000, was launched against a context of growing interest in French political science for European integration issues, which were then dominated by Anglo-Saxon journals. The aim of the journal is to mark the appropriation of the EU field of investigation by political science (international relations, public policy, political sociology, political anthropology, political thought, etc.); to provide observers and players in the European Union with a high-quality scientific journal that takes stock of the debates driving research on the subject and helps to promote exchanges between universities and research centres in France and abroad.

Through special issues, Politique européenne presents an editorial line that builds the necessary bridge between the theory and practice of the European Union.