How a left-wing political party fails to keep up with the times

Abstract

ABSTRACT How can a political party, especially a progressive one, fail to understand and embrace the major changes of its time? The article examines the experience of the Italian Partito Democratico (Democratic Party [P.D.]). Since its foundation in 2007, the party has failed to achieve satisfactory results with regard to its explicit objective of creating a ‘new national party’. Although the party has often joined coalition governments, there has been a marked decline in its electoral support and in the active participation of citizens in its activities. The main thesis of the article is that the current crisis of the P.D. is due to a lack of understanding – almost a rejection – of the two main political changes that have occurred in recent decades: the personalization of politics and the digitalization of society. The party’s refusal to embrace possible political innovations in these areas has been very clear. There is an important paradox here: the fact that a political force which, given its position on the political spectrum, should be looking to the future, instead views the present with great suspicion. This is a position that has become typical of many European left-wing parties, which are well rooted in long-standing political traditions, but are finding it increasingly difficult to understand how societies are changing.