Copycats: Does the Right Emulate the Left On-Line?

• In Event: Digital Advocacy Across Space and the Political Spectrum

Abstract

In 1998 MoveOn pioneered a new and powerful form of digitally-enabled, multi-issue, member-driven, rapid response, advocacy organization. This model quickly spread around the world as other progressive activists emulated it in Australia (GetUp!), Germany (Campact) and in over a dozen other countries. These digital advocacy organizations are all united around common progressive values, and have been influential actors in national elections, and in public debate on a range of issues from the Iraq War to free trade agreements. Here we ask: Have right-wing groups also sought to copy this new digital advocacy organization’ model? And if so, how successful have they been? Drawing on the existing literature we identify three potential accounts for why the right might, or might not emulate the left on-line: 1) supply and demand; 2) ideological differences; and 3) transnational diffusion networks. We then examine four right-wing "copycat” organizations - Grassfire, Advance Australia, Patriot Petition, and CitizenGo. We find that all four organizations are rapid-response, multi-issue on-line campaigning organizations, however none appear to be fully-member driven in their funding or decision-making. Rather these organizations seem to favour hierarchical top-down decision-making, as this is more compatible with norms on the right. Overall, this paper illustrates how some elements of an organizational model may diffuse from the left to the right of the political spectrum, but not others.

Authors

• Nina Hall, Johns Hopkins SAIS

• Annett Heft, Freie Universität Berlin and Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society, Berlin

• Michael Vaughan