Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The mobilization of political discontent in the development of new political formations, and their electoral successes, are frequently linked to the use of digital infrastructures, dominating social media platforms, and utilizing elaborate online strategies. The focus on digital media offers a key point of entry for scholarly engagement with the transformation of political systems throughout the Global North and the rise of political actors operating largely without – or against – established party structures. However, we observe a danger in fetishizing digital media, which can reproduce blind spots such as losing sight of the socio-spatial effects of digitalization on politics as mediated through the organization and strategic practices of political parties. Recapitulating the existing human geography literature on the establishment of political parties and their treatment of ‘the digital’, we identify a need for an increased engagement with the geography of the political party and the role of digital platforms. We develop the argument that there are linkages between ruptures of party systems and platformization since the 2008 financial crisis which require integrated conceptualization. Therefore, we use three empirical examples from German elections that took place in 2024 and 2025 to discuss the interplay between platformization and the changing constellations of political parties. Our empirical examples illustrate not only the platformization of politics and the politics of platformization but also how platform research is able to enrich work on political parties from a political geographic perspective.

Keywords

political system political geography governance populism Germany

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Agnew

(1996) Mapping politics: how context counts in electoral geography. Political Geography 15(2): 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1016/0962-6298(95)00076-3

Aytac

(2024) Digital domination: social media and contestatory democracy. Political Studies 72(1): 6–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/00323217221096564

Bénit-Gbaffou

(2012) Party politics, civil society and local democracy – reflections from Johannesburg. Geoforum 43(2): 178–189. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.08.006

Bergmann

(2025) Bündnisse mit dem BSW – oder: Brombeeren schmecken wunderlich: Die Regierungsbildung nach den drei ostdeutschen Landtagswahlen im September 2024. Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen 38(2): 277–298. https://doi.org/10.1515/fjsb-2025-2027

Bernstein

(2024) How our messed-up dating culture leads to loneliness, anger and Donald Trump. The New York Times, 30 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/30/opinion/dating-bro-culture-manosphere-trump-cinderella.html (accessed 11 June 2025).

Blumler

Kavanagh

(1999) The third age of political communication: influences and features. Political Communication 16(3): 209–230. https://doi.org/10.1080/105846099198596

Bob-Milliar

(2019) Place and party organizations: party activism inside party-branded sheds at the grassroots in northern Ghana. Territory, Politics, Governance 7(4): 474–493. https://doi.org/10.1080/21622671.2018.1503091

Caramanica

(2024) Where to find the avuncular Donald Trump? Check the manosphere. The New York Times, 14 November. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/14/arts/donald-trump-podcasts-men.html (accessed 11 June 2025).

Center for Countering Digital Hate (2024) Musk’s political posts. In: How Musk’s Political Posts Amass More than all U.S. Political Campaign Ads on X’s Disclosure Dataset. Available at: https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/241031-Musk-Political-Posts-Value-NOTE.pdf (accessed 15 November 2024).

10.

Comscore (2012a) Comscore reports September 2012 U.S. mobile subscriber market share. Available at: https://www.comscore.com/ger/Insights/Pressemitteilung/2012/11/comScore-Reports-September-2012-US-Mobile-Subscriber-Market-Share (accessed 13 March 2026).

11.

Comscore (2012b) EU5 smartphone penetration reaches 55 percent in October 2012. Available at: https://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press-Releases/2012/12/EU5-Smartphone-Penetration-Reaches-55-Percent-in-October-2012 (accessed 13 March 2026).

12.

Copus

(2004) Party Politics and Local Government. Manchester University Press.

13.

Cremaschi

Rettl

Cappelluti

, et al. (2025) Geographies of discontent: public service deprivation and the rise of the Far Right in Italy. American Journal of Political Science 69(4): 1581–1599. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12936

14.

Cutts

(2006) Continuous campaigning and electoral outcomes: the Liberal Democrats in Bath. Political Geography 25(1): 72–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2005.07.003

15.

de Leon

(2013) Party and Society. Polity Press.

16.

de Miguel

(2017) The role of electoral geography in the territorialization of party systems. Electoral Studies 47: 67–83. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2016.11.013

17.

della Porta

Fernández

Kouki

Mosca

(eds) (2017) Movement Parties Against Austerity. Polity Press.

18.

Di Matteo

Mariotti

(2021) Italian discontent and right‐wing populism: determinants, geographies, patterns. Regional Science Policy & Practice 13(2): 371–396. https://doi.org/10.1111/rsp3.12350

19.

Dolata

Schrape

J-F

(2023) Politische Ökonomie und Regulierung digitaler Plattformen. In: Carstensen

Schaupp

Sevignani

(eds) Theorien des digitalen Kapitalismus: Arbeit, Ökonomie, Politik und Subjekt. Suhrkamp, 344–363.

20.

Dommett

Kefford

Power

(2021) The digital ecosystem: the new politics of party organization in parliamentary democracies. Party Politics 27(5): 847–857. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068820907667

21.

Ecker

Münßinger

(2024) Towards a geographical political economy understanding of platformization. Progress in Economic Geography 2(2): 100024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.peg.2024.100024

22.

Ecker

Strüver

(2022) Towards alternative platform futures in post-pandemic cities? A case study on platformization and changing socio-spatial relations in on-demand food delivery. Digital Geography and Society 3: 100032. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diggeo.2022.100032

23.

Ferguson

Gimpel

Owens

, et al. (2024) Who’s that knocking? A study of the strategic choices facing large-scale grassroots canvassing efforts. Political Science Quarterly qqae119. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/psquar/qqae119

24.

Fetzer

(2019) Did austerity cause Brexit? American Economic Review 109(11): 3849–3886. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20181164

25.

Fielitz

(2023) Identitarians versus big tech. In: Zúquete

Marchi

(eds) Global Identitarianism. Routledge, 111–123.

26.

Fielitz

Sick

Schmidt

, et al. (2024) Social-Media-Partei AfD? Digitale Landtagswahlkämpfe im Vergleich. Available at: https://www.otto-brenner-stiftung.de/fileadmin/user_data/stiftung/02_Wissenschaftsportal/03_Publikationen/AP73_LTW_AfD_WEB.pdf (accessed 1 September 2025).

27.

Finlayson

(2021) Neoliberalism, the alt-right and the intellectual dark web. Theory, Culture & Society 38(6): 167–190. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764211036731

28.

Förtner

Belina

Naumann

(2021) The revenge of the village? The geography of right-wing populist electoral success, anti-politics, and austerity in Germany. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 39(3): 574–596. https://doi.org/10.1177/2399654420951803

29.

Gabriel

Klein

Pessoa

(2022) The political costs of austerity. Available at: https://www.riksbank.se/globalassets/media/rapporter/working-papers/2022/no.-418-the-political-costs-of-austerity.pdf (accessed 5 June 2025).

30.

Gerbaudo

(2018) The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy. Pluto Press.

31.

Grabher

König

(2020) Disruption, embedded. A polanyian framing of the platform economy. Sociologica 14(1): 95–118. Available at: https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/10443

32.

Guglielmo

(2021) Anti-party Digital Parties Between Direct and Reactive Democracy. The Case of La France Insoumise. In: Barberà

Sandri

Correa

, et al. (eds) Digital Parties. Studies in Digital Politics and Governance. Springer, 127–148.

33.

Haller

(2019) Die Online-Kampagnen im Bundestagswahlkampf 2017: eine quantitative Auswertung der Facebook-Reichweiten von Parteien und Kandidatinnen und Kandidaten. In: Holtz-Bacha

(ed) Die (Massen-)Medien im Wahlkampf. Springer, 49–72.

34.

Halvorsen

(2020a) Territorialising movement parties: the case of Nuevo Encuentro in Buenos Aires. Antipode 52(6): 1710–1730. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12673

35.

Halvorsen

(2020b) The geography of political parties: territory and organizational strategies in Buenos Aires. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 45(2): 242–255. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12343

36.

Han

McKenna

(2015) Groundbreakers: How Obama’s 2.2 Million Volunteers Transformed Campaigning in America. Oxford University Press.

37.

Hardaker

(2021) Platform economy: (dis-)embeddedness processes in urban spaces. Urban Transformations 3(1): 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s42854-021-00029-x

38.

Hendricks

Schill

(2017) The social media election of 2016. In: Denton

(ed) The 2016 US Presidential Campaign. Political Campaigning and Communication. Palgrave Macmillan, 121–150.

39.

Hübscher

Sattler

Wagner

(2023) Does austerity cause polarization? British Journal of Political Science 53(4): 1170–1188. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123422000734

40.

Hürtgen

(2022) Uneven despotization: labour regimes in glocal production. In: Baglioni

Campling

Coe

, et al. (eds) Labour Regimes and Global Production. Agenda Publishing, 155–172.

41.

Inwood

Alderman

(2024) The struggle against post-truth politics has always been about white supremacy: lessons from the informational praxis of SNCC. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 43(4): 783–801. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241286631

42.

Jadhav

(2021) Was it rural populism? Returning to the country, “catching up,” and trying to understand the trump vote. Journal of Rural Studies 82: 553–569. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2020.10.008

43.

Johnston

Pattie

(2008) Place and vote. In: Cox

Low

Robinson

(eds). The SAGE Handbook of Political Geography. SAGE Publications Ltd, 357–374.

44.

Johnston

Shelley

Taylor

(eds) (1990) Developments in Electoral Geography. Routledge.

45.

Katz

Crotty

(eds) (2006) Handbook of Party Politics. Sage.

46.

Leunig

(2025) Wieviel Populismus steckt im BSW? Eine Untersuchung der Programme zu den Landtagswahlen in Thüringen, Sachsen und Brandenburg 2024. Zeitschrift für Parteienwissenschaften 1/2025: 40–60.

47.

Low

(2007) Political parties and the city: some thoughts on the low profile of partisan organisations and mobilisation in urban political theory. Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 39(11): 2652–2667. https://doi.org/10.1068/a38343

48.

Luger

(2024) ‘Where #freedom and #patriotism live:’ Linking digital media to far-right geographies. Political Geography 114: 103195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2024.103195

49.

Mair

(2013) Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. Verso.

50.

Maisel

Berry

Edwards

(eds) (2010) The Oxford Handbook of American Political Parties and Interest Groups. Oxford University Press.

51.

Mau

Westheuser

Lux

(2024) Triggerpunkte: Konsens und Konflikt in der Gegenwartsgesellschaft. Suhrkamp.

52.

Meaney

(2025) Goodbye black zero? London Review of Books 47(5): 24.

53.

Merrill

Lindgren

(2020) The rhythms of social movement memories: the mobilization of Silvio Meier’s activist remembrance across platforms. Social Movement Studies 19(5–6): 657–674. https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2018.1534680

54.

Mévellec

(2021) Campaigning in Quebec municipal elections: when the party defines door to door canvassing as “The Right Way” to campaign. Frontiers in Political Science 3: 743252. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2021.743252

55.

Mullis

(2025) From “places that don’t matter” to peripheralization: a geographical approach to understanding the spatialities of the far right. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 43(6): 1123–1139. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544251314983

56.

Nachtwey

(2024) Die Trigger-Partei. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. 1 September. Available at: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/der-unheimliche-erfolg-des-bsw-und-das-phaenomen-sahra-wagenknecht-19952350.html (accessed 5 June 2025).

57.

Nachtwey

Schaupp

(2021) The service platform as a dualistic meta-organisation: an ethnographic account of contingency work and its organisational cultures. Basel Working Papers in Sociology 1: 1–20.

58.

Nieborg

Poell

(2025) Analyzing institutional platform power: evolving relations of dependence in the mobile digital advertising ecosystem. New Media & Society 27(4): 1909–1927. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448251314405

59.

Nyman

(2017) Door-to-door canvassing in the European elections: evidence from a Swedish field experiment. Electoral Studies 45: 110–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2016.12.002

60.

Oza

Williams

Kamra

(2024) Digital denizenship: Hindu nationalist architectures of digital closings and unbelonging in India. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 42(7): 1150–1169. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544241226813

61.

Page

Dittmer

(2015) Assembling political parties. Geography Compass 9(5): 251–261. https://doi.org/10.1111/gec3.12208

62.

Peter

Schleiermacher

(2025) Es klingelt in Neukölln. die tageszeitung, 8 February. Available at: https://taz.de/Wahlkampfkampagne-fuer-Linken-Kandidaten/!6065601/ (accessed 5 June 2025).

63.

Pfeiffer

(2017) Industrie 4.0 in the making – discourse patterns and the rise of digital despotism. In: Briken

Chillas

Krzywdzinski

, et al. (eds) The New Digital Workplace. Macmillan Education, 21–41.

64.

Pfeiffer

(2022) Digital Capitalism and Distributive Forces. Bielefeld: transcript.

65.

Richardson

(2020) Coordinating the city: platforms as flexible spatial arrangements. Urban Geography 41(3): 458–461. https://doi.org/10.1080/02723638.2020.1717027

66.

Richter

Helmert

Salheiser

(2024) Thüringen im “Superwahljahr” 2024. Analyse der AfD-Wahlergebnisse in den Kommunal-, Europa- und Landtagswahlen. Available at: https://www.idz-jena.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Projektberichte/IDZ_Wahlanalyse_B5_WEB.pdf (accessed 17 July 2025).

67.

Rodríguez-Pose

Dijkstra

(2021) Does cohesion policy reduce EU discontent and Euroscepticism? Regional Studies 55(2): 354–369. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2020.1826040

68.

Schaupp

(2022) Algorithmic integration and precarious (dis)obedience: on the co-constitution of migration regime and workplace regime in digitalised manufacturing and logistics. Work, Employment and Society 36(2): 310–327. https://doi.org/10.1177/09500170211031458

69.

Scheuermann

(2025) Die Linke boomt: Partei hat jetzt fast doppelt so viele Mitglieder wie die AfD. Frankfurter Rundschau, 28 February. Available at: https://www.fr.de/politik/mitglieder-wie-afd-boom-linke-partei-fast-doppelt-viele-93593090.html (accessed 11 June 2025).

70.

Schläger

Katsioulis

Engels

(2024) Analyse der Europawahl 2024 in Deutschland. Mehrheit für die stabile Mitte trotz starkem rechten Rand. Available at: https://www.fes.de/cgi-bin/gbv.cgi?id=21277&ty=pdf (accessed 17 July 2025).

71.

Schläger

Engels

Loew

(2025) Analyse der Bundestagswahl 2025. Eine harte Niederlage mit einer doppelten Herausforderung für die Sozialdemokratie. Available at: https://dc.fes.de/fileadmin/user_upload/FES_Analyse_der_Bundestagswahl_2025_DE.pdf (accessed 17 July 2025).

72.

Scholz

(2025) Haustürgespräche im Wahlkampf: Wie Die Linke erfolgreich Organizing-Methoden anwendet. Der Freitag, 5 March. Available at: https://www.freitag.de/autoren/nina-scholz/haustuerwahlkampf-wie-die-linke-erfolgreich-organizing-methoden-anwendet (accessed 5 June 2025).

73.

Schönberger

(2024) There’s a new kid in town – das Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht als Herausforderung für das Parteienrecht. PRUF Working Papers 5. Available at: https://doi.org/10.24338/PRUFWP-728

74.

Scott

Wills

(2017) The geography of the political party: lessons from the British labour Party’s experiment with community organising, 2010 to 2015. Political Geography 60: 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.06.001

75.

Shin

(2001) The politicization of place in Italy. Political Geography 20(3): 331–352. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0962-6298(00)00067-6

76.

Shin

Agnew

(2007) The geographical dynamics of Italian electoral change. Electoral Studies 26(2): 287–302. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2006.05.002

77.

Sperber

(2024) The French crisis: organic or conjunctural? New Left Review 148: 43–63. https://doi.org/10.64590/hiu

78.

Srnicek

(2017) Platform Capitalism. Polity Press.

79.

Staab

(2023) Markets and Power in Digital Capitalism. Manchester University Press.

80.

tagesschau (2025) Wer wählte die Linke – und warum? Available at: https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2025-02-23-BT-DE/umfrage-linke.shtml (accessed 5 June 2025).

81.

Temple

(2023) Reckoning with the digital turn in electoral geography. Progress in Human Geography 47(4): 555–574. https://doi.org/10.1177/03091325231170328

82.

Thomeczek

(2024) Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW): left-wing authoritarian—and populist? An empirical analysis. Politische Vierteljahresschrift 65(3): 535–552. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11615-024-00544-z

83.

Törnberg

(2023) How platforms govern: social regulation in digital capitalism. Big Data & Society 10(1): 205395172311538. https://doi.org/10.1177/20539517231153808

84.

van Doorn

(2022) Platform capitalism’s social contract. Internet Policy Review 11(1). Available at: https://doi.org/10.14763/2022.1.1625

85.

van Doorn

Mos

Bosma

(2021) Actually existing platformization. South Atlantic Quarterly 120(4): 715–731. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-9443280

86.

Wagner

Wurthmann

(2025) Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht – Vernunft und Gerechtigkeit (BSW). Eine politikwissenschaftliche Einordnung. Springer VS.

87.

Walker

(2025) No fear or favours: how Corbyn and Sultana’s party could blow up British politics. The Guardian, 24 July. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/24/no-fear-or-favours-how-corbyn-and-sultanas-party-could-blow-up-british-politics (accessed 21 August 2025).

88.

Warnke

(2025) Bundestagwahl 2025. Wahlnachtbericht und erste Deutungen zum “Comeback des Jahres”. Available at: https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/wahlanalysen/RLS_Wahlnachtbericht_BTW_2025.pdf (accessed 17 July 2025).

89.

Wiesendahl

(2024) Political Party Research. An Overview. Springer.

90.

Wills

(2019) The geo-constitution: understanding the intersection of geography and political institutions. Progress in Human Geography 43(3): 416–435. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132518768406

91.

Wurthmann

Sältzer

(2025) Der digitale Bundestagswahlkampf 2025: Erste Einblicke. Available at: https://www.kas.de/documents/259361/0/digitalter-bundestagswahlkampf.pdf/ca901cc6-b83b-3bf2-1ba7-fef34e59716b?version=1.1&t=1751564431081 (accessed 17 July 2025).

92.

Zwick

(2018) Welcome to the gig economy: neoliberal industrial relations and the case of Uber. GeoJournal 83(4): 679–691. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-017-9793-8

Towards a platformization of politics? Fragmentation,digitalization,and new geographies of the political party

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References