Pirate legislators use a tool called “liquid feedback,” an evolving online barometer of party members’ opinions on issues, as a significant basis for their votes in parliament. The aim is to deconstruct the boundaries between representative republicanism and direct democracy. While this communitarian approach to governing represents one of the party’s primary attractions, it is also a source of weakness. Frenzied, unfocused debates among Pirate Party members in Berlin have taken place on a host of issues, from free public transportation to the legalization of marijuana. Many in local government have complained that Pirate legislators cannot make decisions without returning to their base for protracted discussion and debate.

In its short life, the party has rallied supporters around fundamental policy questions related to Europe’s increasingly wired society and advocated a libertarian approach to creativity and commerce. But is the Pirate Party a basket case or the birth pangs of a new movement? Europeans—and especially Greens—will grapple with this question in the coming years. Nevertheless, It’s clear that the Pirates are a rising force in German and European politics—and a test of whether the Internet can both inspire and sustain a major political party.

Tyson Barker is director of transatlantic relations at the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Image: PIRATEN