7. LEFT-LIBERTARIAN
PARTIES III:
PIRATE PARTIES
Miloš Brunclík
IMPORTANCE
OF PIRATE
PARTIES
■ New issues
■ New party type
■ Party organization
■ Party communication
■ Party goals
■ Election success/failure
WHAT ARE PIRATE
PARTIES?
■ First PP 2006 – Sweden
(Piratpartiet)
■ Founder and first chair Richard
Falkvinge
■ Reasons to establish a new
party:
■ fight copyright
■ Privacy protection
■ Fight against patents
■ Great example for rise of PP
around the world (2023: 39 PP)
MEDIALIZATION
OF PIRATE
PARTIES
■ Conflicts, law suits, trials
■ Pirate Bay
■ FRA
■ Försvarets radioanstalt office
to control phone and
internet communication
■ IPRED
■ Intellectual Property Rights
Enforcement Directive
■ Facilitates prosecution of
„pirates“
■ „Zensursula“
■ Ursula von der Leyen, 2009
■ ACTA- Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (ACTA)
THE PIRATE
BAY
❑ Swedish website hosting magnet
links and torrent files
❑ Established 2003
❑ Often accused of „assisting in
making copyrighted content
available“
❑ 2006 website's servers in
Stockholm raided and taken away
by Swedish police
❑ 2009 four leading figures sentenced
to one year in prison and payment
of a fine of about 3 mil. EUR
ELECTORAL
SUCCESS
❑ Sweden
▪ 2006: 0,63%
▪ 2012: 0,43%
▪ 2009 (EP): 7,1% (2014: 2,2,%)
❑ Luxembourg
▪ 2018 and 2023: 6-7 %
❑ Iceland
▪ 2013: 5 %
▪ 2016: 14,5 %
▪ 2017: 9,2 %
▪ 2021: 8,6 %
ELECTORAL SUCCESS
„Sink them !“
Germany
• 2009: 2%
• 2013: 2,2%
• Local elections
• 2009 Aachen
and Münster:
first seats
• 2011 success
in Berlin
8,9%
• 2017: 0,4%
Czech Republic
• 2010: 0,8%,
2013: 2,6%
• 2017: 10,8%
• 2021: 15,6 %
(with Mayors)
ORIGINAL
ISSUES
1. Privacy and
personal data
protection
from state‘s
control and
surveillance
2. Copyright and
patents
3. Free internet
„What‘s now the
„Banana republic?“
PRIVACY PROTECTION
„Democracy needs private sphere“
Warning against
„surveillance society“
• Constant registration and
surveillance of people
Privacy protection =
constitutional right
PRIVACY
PROTECTION
■Control efforts
strengthened after 9/11
„I am not allowed to smoke in front of
the camera…“
COPYING
„Good ideas are here to be copied. And why just our generation
should unteach that?“
• Not for commercial use
Legalization of
free downloading
of music, movies,
SW
• Should reflect individuals‘
as well as societal
interests
Principal reform
of copyright
• Positive for the progress
and development
Free spreading
and sharing
COPYRIGHT
AND THE
CZECH
PIRATE
PARTY
No intention to break rights of
authors and artists, but to adjust the
copyright to the digital age
• Support creativity, sharing and a fair reward
for the authors for the commercial use
Shortening of the copyright duration
• Usually it spans the author's life plus 50 to 100
years
• Pirates: 14 years (enough time to create
financial gains)
PATENTS
❑ Favourable/profitable only
for a small group of
monopolist owners
▪ Excessive gains
▪ Limits competition
▪ Limits further development of
society
❑ Patents should be
abolished altogether
▪ Releasing of competition and
innovation
A SHIFT TO OTHER (LESS CONTROVERSIAL)
ISSUES
„Fed up with being surveilled? Join us and stop the big
brother“
Access to public information
Transparency
• Public contracts
• Public administration reform
Corruption
Direct and grassroots democracy
Renationalize the natural-resource industries (ICE)
Legalization of marihuana for medical purposes
PP AS LIBERAL
PARTIES ? ■ Key principle:
freedom
■ Freedom from
control and
surveillance
■ Freedom of
information and
their spreading
■ Free Internet
„Freedom is not a marginal phrase“
PP VOTERS
(SWEDEN)
❑ Young people
❑ Men (80%)
❑ Internet users („digital
natives“)
❑ Cities
❑ Low interest in politics
❑ First time voters
❑ Students
SWEDISH PP
❑ Free membership
❑ 46 687 (!) members (March
2010)
▪ 2020: 2 528 members
❑ EP elections (2009): the best
result among first-time
voters 37% men and 11%
women
CAUSES OF
SUCCESS
1. Medialization
2. General trends in voting
behaviour
▪ Distrust towards parties
▪ More volatile voters
3. Protest appeals
▪ ICE, CZE (LUX) x SWE and
GER
4. Information technologies
5. New issues and style
▪ Authentic, credible image
PROTEST
APPEALS:
ICELAND
❑ Birgitta Jonsdottir
▪ Iceland full of corruption and
“nepotism
▪ Country is controlled by a handful of
“mafia-style families” and their
friends
❑ 2016:Panama Papers: former PM
Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson held
investments in offshore accounts
▪ large protest
▪ Support for the PP surged to 43 %
LUXEMBOURG
2009
❑ general dissatisfaction
with the lack of
transparency in politics
❑ strong opposition to
video surveillance
LUXEMBOURG
2023
❑ Fair tax
❑ Greater security in streets
❑ Digital economy
❑ Reward environmentally friendly behaviour
❑ Child-care benefits (both at home and
facilities)
❑ Better access to health care to all
❑ A roof over everyone‘s head
❑ Universal access to retirement houses
❑ Greater say to citizens
Sven Clement
LIQUID
DEMOCRACY
Another perspective on democracy
Reaction to crisis of representative
democracy
Attempt to revive aspects of direct
democracy
Citizens may
• Delegate their power to representatives
• Take political decisions themselves (e.g. on-line
referenda)
COMMUNICATION
REVOLUTION:
„STRUGGLE FOR
KNOWLEDGE“
1. Information production
▪ struggle for control over content
of information
2. Spread and mediation of information
▪ struggle for control over access
to information
3. Legitimacy of information
▪ which information becomes tool
to gain legitimacy and authority
4. New cleavages (?)
▪ knowledge X market
▪ Transnational networks X
national state
CONCLUSIONS:
PROBLEMS AND
CHALLENGES
❑ Temporary/transient phenomena
▪ Medial bubble or long-term party
???
❑ Low efficiency
❑ Lowering medialization – may cause
failures
❑ Ability to monopolize their issues
▪ Other parties (may) copy the
issues
❑ lack of coherency in many other
(traditional) issues
❑ excessive transparency ? „Vote the original.“