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

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.