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I'm from germany, and have voted for the pirate party in recent local elections. I'd like to add a few things: 1. The german system of government is very much

I'm from germany, and have voted for the pirate party in recent local elections. I'd like to add a few things: 1. The german system of government is very much different from the US. In the US you have by-and-large a "winner takes it all" voting system. In germany, by contrast, we have a system of proportional representation. That means, winning 10% of the popular vote nets you 10% of the seats that are on the line in your voting district. That's why we currently have 6 parties in our federal parliament ("Bundestag") - where you have only 2 parties in congress. 2. Although this is "just" a poll it isn't meaningless. The pirate party has been steadily building up momentum in the last 2 years. They now are the 5th largest party by member count in germany. They have also scored surprisingly high wins in two recent regional elections, and are set to repeat those gains in the two upcoming elections. 3. The pirate party runs on a platform of systemic reform. They want copyright reformed to be more compatible with the 21st century. They want a reformed educational sector with more use of modern technology in the classroom, as well as improved structures (i.e. more freedom to pursue different educational models). They also want to reform the political system at large, by having more citizen participation in political decisions. They want more public votes on specific issues, as well as more transparency (For example: ACTA was negotiated in secret and only announced to the german public once the details were finished. They pirates strongly oppose such intransparency.) This helped them to capture the votes of young, highly educated people. Many, but by no means all, from the "informatics" sector. They have also mobilized many first time voters, and re-energized many people who had formerly abandoned voting. 4. What's currently also helping them is the bad state of our government (the governing coalition is in disarray), their inability to answer to the challenges shaping our future, their corruption (our head of state recently had to resign in shame), their detachedness from concerns of everyday people. This greatly helps them to get the vote of people who are disaffected with the "established" parties and who are ready to give those "political youngsters" a chance. It's by no means guaranteed, but they seem to be on the way of becoming a serious political force in germany.

philippK 14y ago
Update: You'll find the exact polling data here: http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm (FORSA institute, showing the most recent poll where they are ahead of the greens) http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm (overall overview from different pollsters)
_k 14y ago
They had it coming, considering how the Greens (in the EU) were flip flopping on ACTA. Do you happen to know what German parties ALDE http://www.alde.eu/ http://www.alde.eu/ is linked to ? They are pro ACTA, so it would be interesting to know whether they lost a few percentage points as well ?
- brazzy 14y ago
  Claims to be liberal but mainly supports business interests? Who else but the FDP could that be? And, yep: http://www.alde.eu/alde-group/national-delegation-elected-meps/ http://www.alde.eu/alde-group/national-delegation-elected-me... Germany: LAMBSDORFF Alexander Graf, Freie Demokratische Partei And the FDP is currently disintegrating so vociferously it's almost comical to watch. But supporting ACTA has only a small part in that, if any.
  - dan85 14y ago
    Yes, they support business interests. In European politics, "liberal" does not have the same meaning as in US.
    - brazzy 14y ago
      As a European, I know that. My point is that the FDP tends to support business interests far more than civil liberties, especially when the two collide, as with ACTA.
      - nickik 14y ago
        Its funny that the people who use the world liberal mean something completly diffrent of what it meant 100 years ago. They call themselfs libertarians now. FDP and simular parties often use state power to help spezial intresst groupes, witch means that they help businesses but they do not help the economy.
- febeling 14y ago
  FDP is member of ALDE, which is the liberal democrats party. They are in a historic low in the polls recently. They are also part of the federal government coalition right now. The FDP has most of the time been a very small party in popular votes, but are still seen as very established, since they traditionally join a coalition with another larger party (recently mostly CDU/conservatives), and so becoming a deciding factor, more so than their share of the vote would suggest. At the same time they are in most elections in danger of not winning any seats at all, since most elections in Germany have a threshold of 5% as a minimum you need to gain any seat via the proportional vote mechanism.
SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago
I have a lot of respect for the Pirate Party and I wish they'd put up some candidates where I could vote for them, but I have one question: how will they do "more citizen participation in political decisions" and avoid policy being set by tabloid headlines, and conservative populism. The basic problems of mob rule.
- philippK 14y ago
  Well that is a good question. The pirate party wants several steps in enabling more citizen participation. First, they want to make government more transparent so that the people actually have all the information needed to make informed decisions on their hands. No longer do they want to accept that crucial legislation is often negotiated behind closed doors and only announced once everything is already sewn up. Also the contracts the government has with the private sector need to be made transparent. We need proper open data portals. There's a lot of things do to in this area alone. Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level. Third, their longterm vision includes a concept called "Liquid democracy" where basically everyone has the opportunity to have a voice in the political process. This will be facilitated using digital means. Specifically software called "adhocracy" / "liquid feedback" is being developed for this. The pirate party in germany already uses this system for their internal decision making. It's a carefully balanced system comprised of direct voting on issues, and delegating voting power to representatives. See here for more info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy http://liqd.net/en/ http://liqd.net/en/ So i don't see the danger of inviting mob rule with the pirate party. As i see it, they want to open up the political system to more direct participation while keeping it stable enough to guarantee basic democratic freedoms (like minority protections)
  - nickik 14y ago
    "Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level." The should really be looking at switzerland for some of this stuff. I think we handle this pretty nicly.

philippK 14y ago

Update: You'll find the exact polling data here: http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/forsa.htm (FORSA institute, showing the most recent poll where they are ahead of the greens) http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm (overall overview from different pollsters)

_k 14y ago

They had it coming, considering how the Greens (in the EU) were flip flopping on ACTA. Do you happen to know what German parties ALDE http://www.alde.eu/ http://www.alde.eu/ is linked to ? They are pro ACTA, so it would be interesting to know whether they lost a few percentage points as well ?

brazzy 14y ago
Claims to be liberal but mainly supports business interests? Who else but the FDP could that be? And, yep: http://www.alde.eu/alde-group/national-delegation-elected-meps/ http://www.alde.eu/alde-group/national-delegation-elected-me... Germany: LAMBSDORFF Alexander Graf, Freie Demokratische Partei And the FDP is currently disintegrating so vociferously it's almost comical to watch. But supporting ACTA has only a small part in that, if any.
- dan85 14y ago
  Yes, they support business interests. In European politics, "liberal" does not have the same meaning as in US.
  - brazzy 14y ago
    As a European, I know that. My point is that the FDP tends to support business interests far more than civil liberties, especially when the two collide, as with ACTA.
    - nickik 14y ago
      Its funny that the people who use the world liberal mean something completly diffrent of what it meant 100 years ago. They call themselfs libertarians now. FDP and simular parties often use state power to help spezial intresst groupes, witch means that they help businesses but they do not help the economy.
febeling 14y ago
FDP is member of ALDE, which is the liberal democrats party. They are in a historic low in the polls recently. They are also part of the federal government coalition right now. The FDP has most of the time been a very small party in popular votes, but are still seen as very established, since they traditionally join a coalition with another larger party (recently mostly CDU/conservatives), and so becoming a deciding factor, more so than their share of the vote would suggest. At the same time they are in most elections in danger of not winning any seats at all, since most elections in Germany have a threshold of 5% as a minimum you need to gain any seat via the proportional vote mechanism.

SideburnsOfDoom 14y ago

I have a lot of respect for the Pirate Party and I wish they'd put up some candidates where I could vote for them, but I have one question: how will they do "more citizen participation in political decisions" and avoid policy being set by tabloid headlines, and conservative populism. The basic problems of mob rule.

philippK 14y ago
Well that is a good question. The pirate party wants several steps in enabling more citizen participation. First, they want to make government more transparent so that the people actually have all the information needed to make informed decisions on their hands. No longer do they want to accept that crucial legislation is often negotiated behind closed doors and only announced once everything is already sewn up. Also the contracts the government has with the private sector need to be made transparent. We need proper open data portals. There's a lot of things do to in this area alone. Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level. Third, their longterm vision includes a concept called "Liquid democracy" where basically everyone has the opportunity to have a voice in the political process. This will be facilitated using digital means. Specifically software called "adhocracy" / "liquid feedback" is being developed for this. The pirate party in germany already uses this system for their internal decision making. It's a carefully balanced system comprised of direct voting on issues, and delegating voting power to representatives. See here for more info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delegative_Democracy http://liqd.net/en/ http://liqd.net/en/ So i don't see the danger of inviting mob rule with the pirate party. As i see it, they want to open up the political system to more direct participation while keeping it stable enough to guarantee basic democratic freedoms (like minority protections)
- nickik 14y ago
  "Second, they want more votes on specific political issues on the regional, state and federal level. Those are currently only possible in very limited form (they are non binding for the government in most cases), and not at all possible at the federal level." The should really be looking at switzerland for some of this stuff. I think we handle this pretty nicly.