New World Academy Reader #3: Leaderless Politics, with International Pirate Parties (2013)

The international Pirate Parties consist of about 40 political parties worldwide, initiated by the founding of the first Pirate Party in Sweden in 2006. The parties present themselves as practitioners of leaderless politics, convinced as they are that the cult of leadership has long undermined the possibility of a true, direct democracy. The parties defend a process of permanent voting through an approach they term Liquid Democracy, in which online forums are maintained by each Pirate Party that give members the opportunity to continuously vote on new proposals. Despite the fluid nature of their programs, the parties nonetheless remain committed to defending several of their key causes, which include supporting a free and open Internet, common intellectual property, and the establishment of strong privacy laws to protect Internet users.

With contributions by Heath Bunting, Becky Hogge, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Geert Lovink & Merijn Oudenampsen with Willem van Weelden, Matt Mason, Metahaven, and Dirk Poot.

Edited and with an Introduction by Jonas Staal, in dialogue with Dirk Poot
Publisher BAK, Utrecht, 2013
ISBN 9789077288207
146 pages
Out of print, now open access

Pirate Academy (event, December 2013)
Publisher

PDF, PDF