Pirate Parties: The Social Movements Of Electronic Democracy

Contemporary technologies facilitate democratic participation in a digital form. And Pirate Parties claim to represent such an empowered electronic democracy. Thereby this study examines whether Pirate Parties are actually social movements practicing and promoting electronic democracy. For this aim, the research applies the ‘real utopias’ framework exploring desirable, viable, and achievable alternative social designs. In terms of methods, the inquiry is based on the analysis of expert interviews and political manifestos. The study revealed that Pirate Parties are genuine democratic initiatives, widely implementing principles and mechanisms of electronic democracy. Overall, the studied Pirate Parties foster member participation at all stages of policy making. Even though Pirate Parties have achieved low electoral results for public offices, their models of internal democratic organization and political ideas are proliferated by other parties.