French Primary Elections and the Internet, the Social Network of the Socialist Party, the Coopol

Introduction

Over the decades of the Internet’s development and popularization, academic literature on party politics has studied the transformation of organizations and activism, focusing on professionalization and personalization, particularly in online contexts (Gibson & Ward, 2009; Kreiss, 2012); and on the fall in political party memberships, together with the claim that members are being replaced by “supporters” (Dalton & Wattenberg, 2000). Responding to their own decline, some political parties have given non-members a more direct role in selecting party candidates. This is observable in France: for instance, before the 2012 Presidential elections in France, the PS (Parti socialiste, Socialist Party) organized an external election in 2011, termed “open primaries”, which allowed any left-wing voter to participate in the selection of the Socialist candidate for the 2012 presidential election. Fabienne Greffet emphasizes that “the growing use of the Internet itself has helped to transform both intra-party organizations and participation in campaigning” (Greffet, 2013). Some studies have been carried out in other countries with different, sometimes even contradictory results. In the case of Danish and Norwegian parties, Pedersen and Saglie emphasize that use of the Internet seems to provide a way for very active traditional members to increase their activism and involvement in the party (Pedersen & Saglie, 2005). In the case of the British Liberal Democratic Party, online members participate slightly less than offline members (Lusoli & Ward, 2004). On the opposite side of the spectrum, studies of the general public either illustrate the limited penetration of online information and participation within the general population (cfr. Greffet & Vedel, 2011; Koch-Michalska & Vedel, 2009). We aim to shed light on this debate through a study of the French case. This paper offers another perspective, looking at online political activism at a level intermediate between party members and the general population. It explores, in a comparative approach, the profile of online primary election voters and online PS members. The primary offers an opportunity to understand the differences between members and non-members online. In an electoral process strongly marked by personalization and deterritorialization, we can examine a moment when candidates’ electoral teams very much campaign on line. To complement our analysis, we study discussions within the social network of the PS, known as the Coopol¹ (Coopérative Politique), during the period of the Socialist primary elections campaign in order to discover who participated in this social network. From 2010 onwards, several discussions between militants and sympathizers appeared in the Coopol, and since then the Socialist Party has been urged to adopt this network in order to mobilize and enhance communication between members. Since July 2011, within the Coopol, supporter groups have been active and have tried to rally activists and sympathizers around one candidate or another: