The New Kids on the Block: Cyberpolitics and the Emergence of New Latin American Parties (2000–2024)

Abstract

This study examines the transformative impact of cyberpolitics on political systems in six Latin American countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru—between 2000 and 2024. Over this period, 34 elections and the emergence of 103 new political parties revealed a dynamic interplay between technological innovation and political fragmentation. Digital platforms have revolutionized political communication, enabling hyper-segmentation and direct voter engagement while contributing to the disintegration of traditional party structures. The rise of digital-native parties and outsider leaders highlights the shift toward personalized, campaign-driven politics. The research identifies a strong correlation between electoral cycles and the founding of new parties, with three times as many emerging in election years. While cyberpolitics has democratized participation, it has also intensified volatility, fostering a fragile political landscape. This study underscores the dual-edged role of digital technologies in reshaping democracy, emphasizing the need for further exploration of their long-term implications.

1. Introduction

During the first 25 years of the 21st century, 32 elections were held in six Latin American countries, and 103 relevant political groups emerged. This dizzying dynamism is analyzed in this article to answer how cyberpolitics has influenced Latin American political dynamics, analyzing the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru.

Cyberpolitics is a multifaceted phenomenon that encompasses issues ranging from political mobilization and the redefinition of democracy in virtual environments to cyberspace regulation. In this paper, we use the term cyberpolitics to describe the ways in which internet-based and emerging digital technologies reshape political communication, organization, and activism. This includes the use of social media for direct voter engagement, big data and microtargeting for campaign strategies, and digital platforms for decentralized yet personalized mobilization.

2. Literature Review

Cyberpolitics is a field that examines the intersection between politics and cyberspace, a digital domain that transcends traditional territorial boundaries. According to Choucri (2014), cyberpolitics involves both traditional political processes, such as the struggle for power and the allocation of resources, and the specific dynamics of the digital environment, including competition, conflict, and cooperation in cyberspace. Fernández (2008) emphasized the evolution of cyberpolitics in the electoral context, highlighting how digital platforms have replaced traditional media as the primary source of political information. Her study on ten Latin American elections in 2006 showed how the internet and emerging technologies reshaped political processes in Latin America and beyond. It evaluated the impact of digital tools on political communication, campaign organization, and voter engagement. From a more theoretical perspective, Vedel (2006) linked cyberpolitics to the concept of electronic democracy, exploring how digital technologies can transform citizen participation. He argued that cyberspace is not only a tool for disseminating information but also redefines relationships between citizens and governments, challenging the role of political parties and traditional media as intermediaries.

2.1. The Role of Technological Revolutions in Political Communication

The ecosystem of political communication, public opinion, and communication in general has been deeply influenced by technological advancements. Carlota Pérez’s theory of technological revolutions (Pérez, 2021) contextualizes cyberpolitics within broader economic transformations. Pérez identifies five technological “bubbles,” with the current digital revolution fundamentally altering communication patterns and political engagement. Each technological revolution has altered the mechanisms through which political messages are transmitted and consumed. From the Industrial Revolution’s impact on print media to the rise of the internet, communication has continuously adapted to dominant technologies (Rubio Núñez, 2018). This perspective aligns with Friedman’s (2006) argument that financial overinvestment in digital infrastructure has facilitated global connectivity, thereby lowering barriers to political participation and activism.

The expansion of fiber-optic networks and digital connectivity has created a media landscape where traditional gatekeepers, such as newspapers and television networks, have lost their monopoly over political discourse. This phenomenon is exemplified by the emergence of “Cybermania” in the 2000s (Ratzinger, 2011), when the internet became the primary medium for political debate and campaign strategies. Additionally, the emergence of digital-native platforms, including social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, has provided politicians with new ways to shape narratives, engage with voters, and bypass traditional media institutions (Chadwick, 2019).

2.2. Digital Political Communication, Segmentation, and Disintermediation

The adoption of digital tools has led to hyper-segmentation in political campaigns. The segmentation of political audiences, a practice dating back to the 1960 U.S. presidential campaign (Johnson, 2009), has evolved with big data analytics and microtargeting (Bodó et al., 2017). This allows political actors to customize messages based on voter behavior, demographics, and psychographics, significantly enhancing engagement and persuasion tactics. Changes in communication were also accompanied by the segmentation that began in the 1960s. Segmenting a market involves developing consumer profiles for each segment. The process from segmentation to market positioning also includes the identification of target markets. From 2008 onwards, the segmentation of markets has led to hyper-segmentation, which has had an influence on the logic of parties and campaigns. A third milestone occurred in 2016, when the patterns of exposure to the news by citizens turned upside down for several reasons.

The integration of big data into political campaigns is particularly evident in Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, where microtargeting strategies revolutionized electoral marketing (Michaelsen, 2015). Today, political segmentation extends beyond demographic factors to include detailed personal data, such as voting history, social behaviors, and media consumption patterns. Furthermore, advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive analytics enable campaign managers to forecast voter behavior with unprecedented accuracy, tailoring messages accordingly (Bennett & Segerberg, 2012).

With the advent of digital platforms, political leaders increasingly bypass traditional media to communicate directly with their audiences. This trend is highlighted in the study of Twitter’s role in political communication during the COVID-19 pandemic, where leaders such as Bolsonaro, López Obrador, Sánchez, and Fernández utilized social media for direct engagement and crisis messaging (Manfredi-Sánchez et al., 2021). The phenomenon of “disintermediation” reduces the influence of traditional media while enhancing politicians’ control over narratives (Rubio Núñez, 2018).

Digital platforms have also contributed to the rise of populist communication strategies. The personalist nature of social media allows leaders to establish a direct rapport with citizens, often circumventing institutional checks and balances (Waisbord & Amado, 2017). This shift aligns with contemporary trends in political marketing, where authenticity and immediacy are prioritized over institutional messaging (Rodríguez-Virgili & Sadaba-Garraza, 2010). Additionally, the use of digital influencers and coordinated online campaigns has blurred the boundaries between organic political engagement and orchestrated propaganda efforts (Gerbaudo, 2019).

2.3. The Emergence of Digital Parties

Gerbaudo (2019) conceptualized “digital parties” as political entities that operate primarily through online platforms, capitalizing on digital affordances for organization and decision-making. Unlike traditional parties, digital parties minimize bureaucratic structures, instead leveraging online participation tools and social media mobilization.

The neologism pop-politics (política pop) was defined as a political communication style that heavily relies on personalism and spectacle, aimed at constructing the politician as a celebrity figure. It incorporates elements like apps, memes, prime-time television appearances, and interactions with other celebrities, resembling pop entertainment where the leader becomes the star (Amado, 2016; Manfredi-Sánchez et al., 2021). This style emphasizes emotional and symbolic gestures, leveraging infotainment tactics and aesthetic commitments to engage with the public on a more personal and emotional level. It involves actions like using emojis, hashtags, or memes that simulate personal interactions and create an illusion of direct communication with the audience. This approach often blurs traditional boundaries between institutional communication and individual representation, focusing on emotional resonance over factual content.

Key examples include Podemos in Spain, the Five Star Movement in Italy, and the Pirate Party in Northern Europe. These parties demonstrate how digital communication tools can facilitate grassroots political mobilization while also centralizing control within charismatic leadership structures. The model of “hyperleaders” underscores the paradox of digital democracy: while participation appears decentralized, decision-making often remains concentrated at the top (Gerbaudo, 2021).

These trends are increasingly evident in Latin America, where declining trust in political parties (Latinobarómetro, 2018, 2020) has fueled the rise of independent digital movements. In Argentina and Mexico, digital activism has played a critical role in mobilizing voters and shaping political narratives. The “One Million Voices Against the FARC” campaign in Colombia (2008) exemplified how digital platforms facilitate mass political mobilization. Similarly, Vicente Fox’s 2000 campaign in Mexico leveraged digital outreach to challenge the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s (PRI) dominance (Córdova, 2003).

2.4. The Role of Microtargeting and Big Data in Electoral Strategies

Segmenting the market means “dividing that market into smaller groups of buyers with different needs, characteristics, or behaviors, which may require different products or marketing mixes. The company identifies the different ways to segment the market and creates profiles of the resulting market segments.” (Kotler & Amstrong, 2008). Where Kotler writes “company”, it could be replaced by “political party” without the concept losing any meaning.

In political marketing, segmentation is as important or more important than in the marketing of mass consumption products. The target or definition of key audiences is a vital element for the political communication strategy and is determined by carefully studying the communicational space and dividing it into segments in relation to their ability or not to be seduced by the campaign message.

Technology made it increasingly easier to identify levels of micro-segmentation that allowed for more accurate action. Barack Obama’s campaigns for the presidency of the United States in 2008 and 2012, particularly the latter, masterfully executed the techniques of microsegmentation. From then on, segmentation into small niches would be considered an imperative of modern electoral campaigns. Micromarketing means developing differentiated marketing techniques and adapting the offer to meet the political needs and demands of various segments and niches of the market. Thus, micromarketing is the practice of tailoring marketing products and programs to the tastes of specific individuals and locations. “Instead of seeing a customer in every individual, micromarketers see an individual in every customer” (Kotler & Amstrong, 2008).

Bodó et al. (2017) explored how data analytics enable campaigns to personalize messages, optimizing voter engagement. Micro-targeting based on the analysis of big data allows us to know the voter in depth: to know where they vote, how they have voted before, what motivates them, if they are married, the ages of their children, if they like dogs, their sexual orientation, their religious beliefs, their physical exercise habits, or their culinary preferences (Bodó et al., 2017). All this makes it possible to find the best connectors for the transmission of the political message. It also allows high efficiency in the placement of advertising guidelines, with constant monitoring of the effectiveness of advertising spending on the segments that have been defined as key.

Obama’s campaign strategies in 2008 and 2012 exemplify the effectiveness of microtargeting, influencing Latin American political campaigns (Hendricks et al., 2010). The Trump campaign in 2016 further demonstrated the power of digital platforms in shaping electoral outcomes. Digital hyper-segmentation now dictates campaign messaging, media placement, and voter outreach strategies across Latin America (Fernández, 2019).

However, the ethical implications of microtargeting remain a topic of debate. The use of voter data to craft highly personalized political messages raises concerns about privacy and manipulation. In Latin America, where data protection regulations are still developing, the potential for misuse is significant. Studies have shown that political actors use data analytics not only to persuade voters but also to suppress opposition turnout through disinformation campaigns (Tufekci, 2018).

2.5. Party Fragmentation and New Political Dynamics

The increasing reliance on digital communication correlates with party system fragmentation, as analyzed by Norris (2024). Over the past six decades, Western democracies have experienced a rise in the number of effective political parties, driven in part by digital mobilization and niche political movements. Norris (2024) identifies an increasing fragmentation of party systems across Western democracies, a trend mirrored in Latin America. The proliferation of political groups and the decline of traditional parties indicate a shift toward more fluid, decentralized political structures. This shift aligns with Aldrich’s (2011) conceptualization of parties as endogenous institutions shaped by political actors’ strategic interests.

Latin America provides a case study of how digital communication reshapes political structures. Leaders such as Alberto Fujimori and Hugo Chávez circumvented traditional party institutions, leveraging media narratives to build direct relationships with the electorate (Chasquetti, 2001; Mainwaring et al., 2001). Similarly, Vicente Fox’s 2000 victory in Mexico demonstrated the potential for media-driven electoral disruption (Córdova, 2003).

The increasing use of social media has facilitated direct voter engagement, allowing populist leaders to establish direct lines of communication with their bases, reducing dependence on traditional party machinery (Mainwaring et al., 2001).

The weakening of traditional parties has implications for democratic stability. As party systems become more fragmented, governing coalitions become increasingly difficult to sustain. The rise of digital movements, while promoting participation, also fosters political volatility, as seen in Brazil’s 2018 elections, where Jair Bolsonaro leveraged social media to bypass party structures and win the presidency.

The phenomenon of “corporate takeovers” within traditional parties, exemplified by Trump in the U.S. Republican Party and Jeremy Corbyn in the British Labour Party, illustrates how digital engagement can redefine party leadership and internal power structures. This aligns with Aldrich’s (2011) argument that political parties serve as instruments for ambitious politicians, adapting to new communication paradigms to maintain electoral viability.

This literature review synthesizes key contributions from various scholars, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding the complex relationship between technology, political communication, and public opinion in contemporary democracies. From the emergence of digital parties to the fragmentation of party systems and the increasing reliance on microtargeting, the political landscape is continuously reshaped by innovations in digital media.

The interplay between technology and political communication underscores the need for further research into the long-term implications of digital engagement on democracy. While digital platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for participation and mobilization, they also introduce new challenges related to transparency, centralization of power, and the erosion of traditional political structures.

3. Methods and Hypothesis

The evolution of political communication in the digital age reflects broader technological and economic shifts. After this review of the interwoven relationship between technology and politics, the following hypotheses were formulated:

Hypothesis 1 (H1):

Cyberpolitics facilitates the emergence of new parties by lowering organizational and communicational entry barriers.

Hypothesis 2 (H2):

Cyberpolitics accelerates party system fragmentation by fostering hyper-segmentation, personalization, and disintermediation.

This paper examines six Latin American countries—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru—to catalog the emergence of new political parties following technological advancements and their impact on the dynamics of political communication. These countries were selected because this study forms part of a larger research project by the author, which utilizes quantitative public opinion data from a global study encompassing 36 countries, including the six highlighted here.

Key metrics include the following:

• Internet penetration rates as a proxy for technological adoption.
• Emergence of political parties with parliamentary representation.
• Contextual political milestones.

Between 2000 and 2024, 34 elections were held across these six countries. This study created an inventory of relevant political groups during this period. Case studies provide qualitative insights into the rise of digital parties, complemented by statistical analysis of party emergence during election years versus non-election years.

To establish relevance, the study considered only political parties that won at least one seat in the national parliament. Instances of new coalitions, where each member party retained its own representation, and cases of parliamentary transfuguism, were omitted from the count. Only new parties achieving parliamentary representation in the lower house during analyzed electoral processes were included. The statistical comparison between election years and non-election years provides insights into how the electoral calendar influences party formation.

Each of the six cases is analyzed, with the inventory of new parties complemented by a contextualization of the most relevant political milestones for the period. This approach allows for an understanding of the emergence of these parties and the fragmentation of political structures within their broader context.

The complete inventory is in Appendix A1.

4. Results: The New Kids on the Block—Inventory of New Parties

Across six countries, over 25 years, there have been 34 presidential elections and 103 emerging parties. These are the key players of the region, the new kids on the block, who have aroused public interest due to their novel and timely presence in the electoral field, and whose appearance is summarized in the

Table 1. New parties with parliamentary representation.

	2000	2005	2010	2015	2020
Argentina	3	9	6	6	2	26
Brazil	2	3	3	0	1	9
Chile	1	2	8	5	6	22
Colombia	1	7	3	3	2	16
Mexico	0	3	4	1	0	8
Peru	4	4	7	5	2	22
	11	28	31	20	13	103

SOURCE: Author. Bold means total number of new parties for the year and country.

:

4.1. Internet Growth

Over the past two decades, Latin American societies have experienced a steady growth in their internet penetration rates. Strikingly, as the proportion of citizens with access to the internet grew, so did the number of new parties entering national parliaments at similar numbers and speeds. The graphs of both datasets run parallel when averaged for the six Latin American countries analyzed, suggesting that the digital world has facilitated the formulation of new political groupings, supporting the first hypothesis of this paper (H1).

Figure 1 suggests a strong correlation between internet penetration and the rise of new parties in parliaments, particularly from the mid-2000s onward. As internet access has expanded, so has the cumulative presence of new parties. This pattern makes intuitive sense: the internet lowers entry barriers for political actors by enabling cost-effective communication, mobilization, and alternative narratives that challenge traditional party dominance.

However, it is crucial to recognize that correlation does not imply causation. While internet penetration may facilitate political diversification, other structural factors are also at play. Peaks in party formation could coincide with moments of electoral cycles, economic crises, political scandals, or broader socio-political transformations rather than being solely driven by technological adoption.

4.2. Emergence of Political Parties with Parliamentary Representation

When examining the establishment of new political parties year by year (see Figure 2), the data is aggregated across the six countries. Two distinct peaks emerge around 2005 and 2013, after which the fervor for founding new parties appears to wane. From 2013 to 2024, the “novelty effect” of these new political entities seems to lose its momentum.

In 2005, digital advancements enabled the creation of twelve new parties across the six countries studied, while nine were founded in 2013. Case studies, such as Colombia’s Partido Verde (2005), Argentina’s PRO (2005), Mexico’s Morena (2011), and Brazil’s Bolsonaro-led coalition (2019), illustrate how digital tools facilitate direct voter engagement, circumventing traditional media. However, the frequency of party formation varies significantly among the six nations, as the accompanying graph indicates in Figure 2.

The heat map of the six countries (Figure 3) suggests that at election times, there is greater emergence of new political parties. The graph shows the election year in a stitched line, which partially answers the second hypothesis (H2): the proximity of the electoral calendar is an incentive for the founding of new parties (Figure 3).

4.3. New Parties and Electoral Milestones

Many events may have had an impact on the processes, but it is worth reviewing some milestones by country that underline the evolution of the party system and the acceleration of the birth of new groups. The timeline of the emergence of these new actors and their names is shown in Appendix A2.

The political landscape of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru during the first 25 years of the 21st century reveals a dynamic interplay of historical legacies, political realignments, and the emergence of new political entities. These developments reflect broader regional trends of electoral volatility, fragmentation, and innovation in political organization and communication.

Argentina witnessed the rise of 26 new political groups during this period, driven by widespread societal discontent encapsulated in the protest slogan “They all must go.” The emergence of Mauricio Macri’s PRO and its subsequent evolution into the Cambiemos and Juntos por el Cambio coalitions marked a pivotal shift. For the first time in a century, a figure outside the traditional Unión Cívica Radical and Partido Justicialista reached the presidency. Traditional parties, while still present, increasingly adapted to coalition-based politics, diluting their singular identities in favor of broader electoral alignments like Frente de Todos.

In contrast, Brazil has seen the rise of only nine new parliamentary parties. This era has been defined by the dominance of Lula da Silva and the Workers’ Party (PT), whose innovative use of cyberpolitics has included both grassroots activism and controversial tactics, like bots and fake news generation. However, political dynamics shifted dramatically after Dilma Rousseff’s impeachment in 2016 and Lula’s subsequent conviction, paving the way for Jair Bolsonaro’s election in 2018. Brazil’s political landscape also demonstrated extraterritorial influence, with Lula’s São Paulo Forum and support for leaders across the continent.

Chile experienced a surge of 22 new parties, especially after 2009, reflecting shifting voter preferences and the disruptive influence of figures like Marco Enriquez-Ominami. His ad hoc PROgresistas party exemplified the “Media Party” model, leveraging digital tools to challenge the entrenched Concertación coalition and enabling a rightward electoral swing. This trend of fragmentation was reinforced in the 2021 constituent election, where a diverse array of independent leaders sidelined established parties, signaling voter dissatisfaction with the status quo.

In Colombia, 13 new parties emerged amid the waning influence of traditional Conservative and Liberal parties. Álvaro Uribe’s dominance underscored the period, with his Partido de la U, and other formations, like the Polo Democrático Alternativo shaping electoral contests. Antanas Mockus’s 2010 presidential campaign highlighted the potential and pitfalls of cyberpolitics, employing digital engagement yet lacking centralized coordination. The rejection of the 2016 Peace referendum, a political shock akin to Brexit and Trump’s election, underscored the polarized and volatile nature of Colombian politics.

Mexico exhibited relative stability, with just eight new parties emerging, three of which supported Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) in the critical 2018 election. AMLO’s eventual victory marked a decisive break from the PRI’s seven-decade dominance, despite initial gains under Vicente Fox’s innovative PAN campaign in 2000. The 2018 election also symbolized the electorate’s rejection of systemic discredit and continuity, reshaping the country’s political trajectory—a shift that was consolidated in 2024 election.

Peru’s political landscape stands out for its extreme fragmentation, with 22 new parties arising amidst frequent political crises and the deposition of three presidents by parliament. The studied period was bookended by Fujimori’s Perú 2000 and Castillo’s Perú Libre, both minor parties that leveraged regional and grassroots support to achieve unexpected electoral victories. The 2021 election epitomized this volatility, with a record 17 candidates and a “technical tie” scenario, underscoring the enduring challenges of party system consolidation.

5. Discussion

5.1. Parties and Electoral Cycles

The data from the list of emerging parties can serve as a strong indicator of the political–institutional instability affecting democracy in subregions. Political parties are essential institutions for ensuring the long-term stability and effective functioning of democratic regimes. Beyond their role in electoral campaigns, political parties are responsible for channeling and addressing social demands, managing socio-political conflicts, and shaping public policy alternatives (Aldrich, 1997; Diamond, 2021; Linz, 1990).

One hundred three “new kids” in twenty-five years and in six countries yield an average of more than seventeen new matches per country for the period, although Brazil and Mexico are clearly below that average. These data tell a story of political–electoral dynamism and fragmentation, of ephemeral parties or “parties” (Roberts & Wibbels, 1999) whose evolution, context, and basic conditions are particular.

The analysis of the naming of these new parties that emerged in Latin America during the first two decades of the 21st century shows a refoundational style and an obsession with change: New Majority, Fifth Republic, National Restoration, Together for Change, Democratic Revolution, National Regeneration, Together We Will Make History, and Alliance for the Great Change, among many others. These names speak to the restorative spirit of the emerging parties and a certain populist rhetoric that permanently evokes the “power of the people” (Gerbaudo, 2014).

The technological changes of this century, which began with the internetmania of the late 1970s (Pérez, 2021), have transformed campaigns for public office. The technological changes resulting from the digital bubble facilitated the emergence of new parties, and with them the instability of political systems. This happened, to a large extent, because of the facilities that technology provided to political communication, which made the intermediation of the political party replaceable. The existence of parties reflects, to a large extent, the fact that ambitious politicians resort to the political structure to achieve their personal objectives and goals. However, they will only be successful to the extent that these parties are useful vehicles for achieving objectives that cannot be solved with the same effectiveness independently (Aldrich, 1997).

New parties have a fundamentally electoralist nature, so much so that in many cases they could be characterized as mere electoral platforms. They align with Barr’s definition of outsiders: an outsider is someone who gains political prominence not through or in association with an established competitive party, but as an independent politician or in association with new or recently competitive parties (Barr, 2009).

The link between parties and the electoral process is so evident that they emerge precisely in line with the electoral schedule. To statistically validate this assertion, the average number of parties that emerged in an election or pre-election year in the six countries analyzed was calculated, in contrast to the number of new parties in a non-election year.

In analyzing the 25-year period for each country, it was found that in electoral and pre-electoral years, three times more political parties emerged than in non-electoral ones. Specifically, during each electoral or pre-electoral year, an average of 1.12 political parties emerged, while in non-electoral years, the average was 0.38. The confidence interval was wider in election years, with variation between 0.8094 and 1.4362 parties per year (see Figure 4). These results clearly support the second hypothesis (H2) of this research.

5.2. Segmentation and Fragmentation

The emergence of new political–partisan actors in Latin America can be understood as a process influenced by technological change. From the electorate’s perspective, the significant rise in internet penetration—mirroring global trends—has led to a corresponding increase in the use of new media for information dissemination (infopolitics) and political mobilization (cyberactivism) (Fernández, 2008). Simultaneously, the traditional distinction between information producers and consumers has blurred, transforming communication from a simple exchange between sender and receiver into a dynamic process shared across social networks (Ratzinger, 2011).

From the perspective of political parties, these changes are equally profound. Cyberpolitics has reshaped party communication in at least three key ways:

  i.

The ability to target specific segments of the electorate through precise audience definition, including hyper-segmentation.

 ii.

The opportunity for direct voter engagement, bypassing traditional media and enabling new political communication formats better suited to contemporary communication and marketing languages.

iii.

The ease of fostering political organization by building networks of communication, contact, and activism among supporters or allies united by a common cause.

These developments have given rise to two interrelated phenomena that define contemporary political dynamics in Latin America and accompany periods of critical instability: the hyper-segmentation of the electorate and the hyper-fragmentation of political parties.

The 103 new parties with some electoral significance that are counted in this article emerged and developed from the use of new techniques of political communication. These parties could be described as digital due to their skills with new tools for political communication and for segmented attention to their key audiences. In this sense, the new parties and outsiders, as political referents emerging under the shelter of the new tools of communication and information, have gained political relevance, a relevance that can be identified by their ability to influence the tactics of partisan competition. In many cases, parties that were previously uncompetitive have gained momentum, visibility and influence in campaigns, with competitive advantages over established parties (Barr, 2009; Burnham & Sartori, 1977).

In addition to the phenomena of hyper-segmentation and hyper-fragmentation of parties, there is a third consequence of the new forms of communication, which, for political agents, has the same risks and possibilities as for the media: the possibility of designing micro-segmented content.

The emergence of the digital bubble brought with it a multiplicity of information options, much greater than that of the mass media of the second half of the twentieth century (Salaverría, 2005). Contemporary communicational architecture offers content that can be adjusted to particular interests and political identities, with a multiplicity of offers on the internet and the possibility of access to news and political information from social networks, searches, and personalized television and radio content broadcasts, among many others. Individuals may, of their own volition, be exposed to information and perspectives that are also diverse, or they may select varied media with monotonous messages, in a way that produces an echo effect. The possibility of micro-segmentation offers a mix between the confirmation of personal ideological biases with the corporate logic aimed at maximizing clicks and time of use, which can build “echo chambers” that would affirm personal beliefs and ideologies rather than expose audiences to unfamiliar ideas, revise prejudices, or rethink aggressive feelings toward others (Dubois & Blank, 2018; Waisbord, 2020).

Technology has caused an abundance of information and facilitated access to it, causing, on the one hand, the random, non-linear consumption of information and allowing the selection of sources, direct or indirect, institutional or personal, from which information is received. We have created our own information ecosystem—a very personal world parallel to other personal worlds and a propitious terrain for post-truth. An ecosystem made up of self-referential information that preserves, in the best of cases, internal coherence but does not require any type of coherence with previous texts, much less with reality, also causes the perception that all those who do not share our information ecosystem are profoundly biased (Rubio Núñez, 2018)

Within these information ecosystems that Rubio pointed out, there may be differences that affect political campaigns, depending on whether different agents express their interest in politics (Fernández & Rodríguez-Virgili, 2019). Thus, the way in which specialized audiences are informed about politics on the internet differs from the way in which voters in general do. This difference certainly affects the design of content for campaign messages.

The campaigning capabilities of digital parties exceed those of analog parties, but their existence can be as ephemeral as that of an electoral platform. Sometimes this even resembles a briefcase party or pret-a-porter solution. A good example is the campaign of Antanas Mockus for the presidency of Colombia in 2010 (Rincón, 2011). At the time, he was considered a model for his good management of social networks. Although he did not win the election, he did participate in the balloting. Mockus’s cyberpolitical campaign had more apps designed for Facebook than Obama’s campaign team had come up with a couple of years earlier, in the realm of applied technology (Hendricks et al., 2010). Most of these apps were designed by programmers who willingly gave their time and talents to a cause they believed in. One of them, particularly successful, for example, asked Facebook users to give away their status daily. Whoever accepted allowed the promoters of the application to place in their status Antanas Mockus’s message of the day, using it as a tool to try to articulate and control the campaign message and create an agenda (Fernández & Dell’Oro, 2011).

Hundreds of thousands of followers on social networks and an enthusiastic army of followers were not enough for Mockus to triumph in that 2010 election. Antanas’ networks acted in an anarchic and disjointed manner. Despite the existence of integrated communications, and undoubted human talent, there was no unified centralization in databases, nor the ability to communicate and activate in an organized way the high number of people willing to be activists. The political message was also dispersed. The dynamism of the campaign platform did not have the capacity to articulate itself organically to solidify the newborn Colombian Green Party, presenting an important asynchrony between the speed of social networks and the institutional capacity to respond to them organically. Opinion expression and activism mediates the relationship between overall social media use and protest behavior (Valenzuela, 2013). Valenzuela findings on Chile 2011 have deepened our knowledge of the uses and effects of social media and have provided new evidence on the role of digital platforms as facilitators of direct political action.

Building networks of communication, contact, and activism might sometimes be confused with the digital political strategy known as “astroturfing.” This strategy involves creating numerous interconnected profiles across various social media platforms, equipped with content designed to establish their credibility as genuine users, alongside fake news websites. Calvo and Aruguete highlighted the case of Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential election in Brazil. The digital footprints of astroturfing were traced, in that case, revealing a deliberate strategy of cascading activation and the creation of localized media frames. However, explaining the success of this mechanism requires more than identifying planned manipulation; it also depends on the incidental participation of unconnected users and the neutralization of the opponent’s communication space (Calvo & Aruguete, 2020).

The evolution of ideologies also contributes to this dynamic. When analyzing new “flash” parties, often short-lived campaign platforms, such as Fox’s in the Mexican 2000 election or what several parties did for the Chilean campaign for the Constitutional Assembly in 2022, it becomes clear that these parties tend to be more personalistic than ideological. Their structure typically revolves around a central leader, with campaigns emphasizing the candidate’s persona over their proposals or ideas. This contrasts with traditional parties, which were more firmly rooted in left–right ideological identities. This phenomenon is not unique to Latin America; rather, it reflects a broader global shift in the evolution of political parties (Aldrich, 1997; Norris, 2004).

In this general evolution of the parties, both the weakening of ideologies and the emergence of campaign services play a role in outsourcing. The ambitious politician seeking to gain and maintain power has always leveraged technology to support their efforts, and the contemporary era is no different in this regard. However, the relatively recent emergence of a professional class of expert consultants trained in the use of technology to achieve policy goals (Medvic a Johnson, 2009), in the areas of polls, advertising, strategy, or social networks, may have facilitated the emergence of ephemeral campaign platforms, with weak ties to political parties (Rodríguez-Virgili & Sadaba-Garraza, 2010).

For Waisbord, who clearly identifies party hyperfragmentation as an element that has developed simultaneously with technological change, polarization is the result of the aggregation of political communication processes that obey mainly the decisions of political and media elites rather than processes predetermined by digital politics or especially “social platforms”: “Polarization is not inevitably linked to the impact or trends of a platform or to the fragmentation of public communication. There is not a single type of media/platform that unilaterally “polarizes”. On the other hand, there are mixed processes in political communication that allow us to explain more convincingly the flows of de/polarization” (Waisbord, 2020).

For Carlota Pérez and her theory of technological bubbles, this phenomenon could be an expression of the end of the bubble, which usually leads to collapse and recession. “The anger and resentment of the victims when bubbles burst could create the perfect social ferment for the rise of populists who offer destruction and punishment to the guilty, whoever they are: Jews or Muslims; the bankers or the imperialists; politicians or elites. The 1840s, 1890s and 1930s have been all those eras, and now we would be facing another: the end of the bubble of the Internetmania. Traditional political parties are divided, new movements and parties emerge, populists thrive at both extremes; the center weakens and hollows out (Pérez, 2021).

Our findings suggest that cyberpolitics functions less as a background trend and more as an enabling mechanism that shapes both the emergence of new political actors and the fragmentation of traditional parties. This helps explain why outsider parties have been able to mobilize support without traditional partisan infrastructures. Empirical cases in Latin America reinforce this point. Valenzuela (2013), analyzing social media use in protest behavior, shows how digital tools enable new organizational repertoires that bypass established partisan channels. Similarly, Serrano-Puche et al. (2018) highlight that the fragmentation of news consumption in Latin America undermines traditional party-mediated communication, while Calvo and Aruguete (2020) show how digital polarization through trolls and misinformation destabilizes established political actors. Taken together, these studies support our two hypotheses: cyberpolitics does not merely evolve in tandem with party system change but actively facilitates it.

6. Conclusions

Latin America has historically been a region of great volatility and instability. The accounting of one hundred three emerging parties with an impact on national political life, for the period studied, shows an average of almost fifteen new parties per country, which speaks of the dynamism and political–electoral fragmentation of the subregion. The scope of the research is Latin America, particularly the cases of Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, but this work offers a conceptual and methodological framework that can be replicated to explore other latitudes.

This study confirms that cyberpolitics has significantly influenced the emergence of new parties and the fragmentation of traditional systems in Latin America. However, the interplay of digital tools with contextual factors, such as political instability, underscores the complexity of these transformations. While cyberpolitics democratizes participation, it also introduces risks, necessitating further research into its long-term implications for governance and stability.

The technological changes of this century have transformed campaigns and, with it, the dynamics of political systems. Digital technology has changed the formats of public communication, generating as by-products the segmentation of audiences and the fragmentation of party systems. Together, both phenomena have contributed to the vigorous emergence of disruptive parties and electoral platforms that have gained political prominence. Cyberpolitics has made it possible for a politician to develop a complete campaign platform, sometimes complementing that of their party, but on other occasions totally dispensing with them. In this sense, the answer to the research question of this thesis is affirmative: technological changes have facilitated the emergence of new parties and with them a dose of instability to political systems.

The concept of digital parties, characterized by online operations and personalist leadership, provides a lens for examining the dynamic political landscape. Drawing from Paolo Gerbaudo’s conceptualization, digital parties operate primarily through online platforms, leveraging digital tools for organization and decision-making (Gerbaudo, 2021). This framework is critical for understanding the “new kids” discussed in this study. Unlike traditional parties, these entities often rely on personalist leadership and exhibit ephemeral organizational structures. This study integrates regional case studies, aiming to provide a comprehensive view.

The new kids on the block are the 103 new parties with some electoral significance that are counted in this research. They have emerged and developed from the use of new techniques of political communication. They are digital parties due to their broad skills with new tools for political communication, supporting our first hypothesis (H1). In this sense, the new parties, many of them outsiders or agents external to the orthodoxy of the political system, have gained momentum and managed to position themselves as political references. Supported by the new tools of communication and organization, they had benefit of novelty among their assets.

New parties are born according to the electoral schedule. During a presidential (or pre-election) election year, three times as many political parties emerged compared to non-election years. The campaign capabilities of these digital parties exceeded those of analog parties, but their existence could be as ephemeral as that of a campaign platform, leading to volatility in the electoral system and potential for democratic instability. This partially supports the second hypothesis (H2).

There are several characteristics of the political system in Latin America that have been expressed in the last 25 years, and which encourage campaigns to focus on candidates. First, the dominant political system is a presidential regime, which extends “downstream” to all other electoral executive positions. Second, numerous changes have occurred in the political party system, characterized by a greater number of parties, whose role is mainly enhanced during campaign times. Finally, the absence of ideology is the primary driver of voting behavior and the decline of party loyalty (Torcal, 2003).

As communications technology has changed, new tools have been incorporated into the daily logic of parties and their campaigns. Consultants, surveys, and direct mail efforts were included as part of the standard activities, and the party relied more and more on hiring public opinion and communication professionals, and less on activism and volunteerism (Norris, 2004). But to the same extent that the professionalization of campaigns became normalized, candidates acquired more autonomy to present themselves to voters. Until a few years ago, candidates were totally dependent on the party organization, which maintained a monopoly on resources to carry out a campaign with a chance of victory. The evolution of technologies has allowed media, especially social networks and digital media, but also media expertise to be outsourced for measuring public opinion. In addition, traditional media such as television and radio have offered the possibility for candidates to campaign for themselves (Hamilton en Thurber & Nelson, 1996).

As early as 1986, the famous American consultant Joe Napolitan said that politics was increasingly becoming “the art of communicating the candidate’s message directly to the voter without filtering it through a party organization” (Napolitan, 1986). The lack of party loyalty leads citizens to decide their vote according to the candidate, who is forced to define themselves beyond what their loyalty to a party may indicate. As the slogan of the Democratic candidate for president of the United States in 1998, Michel Dukakis, said, “the election is not about ideologies, but about aptitudes”.

Unlike what happens with business-type organizations, parties are often institutions that respond more endogenously than exogenously. The logic of the party’s operation is largely autonomous with respect to the social processes of the environment and responds more to its own ends, as well as to the very particular objectives of the main actors who dominate them (Aldrich, 2011). This endogenous nature makes it difficult for parties to adapt to respond to environmental pressures. Marketing is not everything, although parties use political marketing techniques when they are in elections, neither their structures nor their incentives respond strictly to the market.

Historically, political parties have been considered as the organizational elements that make it possible to order the preferences of the electorate. Parties link citizens and the political system, thus playing a central role in democratic governance (Dahl, 1971). In fact, their representative function makes them a key element of democracy itself. However, it should be noted that Aldrich’s definition is fundamentally utilitarian and explains parties through the logic of the individuals who comprise them and their ambition for power. This aligns with the perspective of economists such as Schumpeter, for whom the first and main objective of each political party is to prevail over the others in order to reach power and remain in power. Victory over the opponent is the essence of the game (Schumpeter, 1943). Similarly, in Downs model, any government has as a fundamental objective to maximize political support, knowing that periodic elections are held, and therefore, its main objective is re-election, just as winning the election is also the objective of the adversary parties that are out of power (Downs, 1957).

Digital technologies provide new parties with organizational and communicational leverage while simultaneously eroding the communicative hegemony of traditional parties. This dynamic is consistent with our quantitative findings on internet penetration but also demonstrates, as reviewers have suggested, that adoption rates alone are insufficient: the strategic use of digital media explains the intensity of party emergence and fragmentation.

Cyberpolitics has fundamentally altered the political landscape in Latin America. The comparative data between the six countries analyzed are in line with what has been observed in other latitudes and provide further support for the widely accepted observation that party systems in Western democracies have experienced increasing fragmentation. The transition from traditional party structures to digital engagement reflects broader global trends in political communication (Norris, 2024). While digital platforms enhance political participation and mobilization, they also introduce challenges, such as party fragmentation and electoral volatility. The findings of this article underscore that the fragmentation of the party system is a dimension linked to electoral competition. This has occurred in parallel with processes of political instability in the continent, although it could not be concluded that, in itself, hyperfragmentation is a cause of democratic regression, although it does seem to be a cause of volatility. Further efforts are needed to understand the implications of these findings and to understand their impact on Latin American democracy. Future research should explore the long-term implications of cyberpolitics on democratic stability and governance in the region.

This study highlights three main areas for further investigation:

  i.

Impact on Democratic Stability: The relationship between party fragmentation and democratic instability warrants deeper exploration, particularly in contexts of high electoral volatility.

 ii.

Comparative Analyses: Future research could expand this framework to other regions, examining how cyberpolitics shapes political systems in diverse socio-political environments.

iii.

Ethical Considerations on Cyberpolitics: While it was not the main focus of this research, new technological advances in campaigns, such as the use of big data and AI, could be included in contemporary research, as it raises concerns about voter manipulation, privacy, and the transparency of political processes.

By integrating regional case studies and contextual factors, this research contributes to a nuanced understanding of the dual-edged nature of cyberpolitics. While digital tools foster inclusivity and innovation, they also pose significant challenges that policymakers and scholars must address to ensure the long-term health of democratic systems.