Young people's engagement in ‘new’ parties

Abstract

The rise of the Pirate Party (Piratenpartei) in Germany poses a challenge to the established parties. The young party, which focuses on Internet issues, has experienced a sudden and massive rise in popularity. It is especially popular among many young people, who feel that the issues taken up by the party are derived straight from their everyday lives. Furthermore, the young party offers ways of participation that do not take up too much time. Its distinctly anti-hierarchical structure, which suggests extreme transparency, is rather attractive to young people. But besides challenges, the rise of the Pirate Party also presents opportunities. Topics and trends that have inadvertently been neglected can be taken up. Also, new forms of participation can be incorporated. The Junge Union Deutschlands has successfully taken up this challenge.

Introduction

The rise of new parties poses a challenge and presents new opportunities for the established parties in a political system. Usually the new party picks up topics and trends that have been neglected by the other political actors and for which there is a need for representation, reflection and attention. These topics usually derive from the living spheres of young people, who are under-represented in the established political parties. Besides the content, new forms of political participation are the foundation of the success of new parties. Because young people have limited free time, there is a need for new forms of easy participation that do not take up too much time. Studies show that young people are interested in political activities, especially if they concern issues that are relevant for their own lives. Furthermore, the access to political participation has to be easy. New parties that derive from these issues and use easy access methods, like participation through the Internet, therefore can have huge success rather spontaneously. In Germany, the Pirate Party (Piratenpartei) nourished the need of young people to easily participate and talk about issues that relate to them. Although the success of the Pirate Party seems to have reached its peak in 2012, this success is remarkable. Furthermore, it is a clear sign and a warning signal for the established parties that have to take the reasons for this success into account and incorporate the easy measures with which the political participation of young people can be achieved and implemented. Hence, the rise of a party like the Pirate Party can be an opportunity for the other political actors to analyse, evaluate and incorporate new ways of political participation and–-through this–-engage more young people in active politics.

Political commitment of young people

For young people today, there is a wide range of opportunities for spending and enjoying free time. From sports to music or just being with friends, children and youth can choose from various activities. Hence, political commitment is only one of many possibilities.

Children and young people today have less and less time for commitments outside of school and extracurricular educational activities. The reason for this lies in the higher demands that young people are faced with in their educational careers. According to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Stiftung (Picot 2012), school and university students especially have less and less time for voluntary activities. The shortening of the school time at the Gymnasium from nine to eight years and the transition to the bachelor-master system at universities are two of the reasons for the increased demand on students’ time. According to the study, 51% of the secondary-school students who complete their studies in nine years have the time to commit themselves to voluntary activities, compared to only 41% of those who pass their exams after eight years. The figure for students in an all-day schooling system is only 31% and therefore eight points below the quota for students that finish school at noon (Picot 2012).

The lack of time does not mean that young people are not willing to engage in voluntary activities outside the educational system. The Bertelsmann study shows that the willingness for commitment actually increased by 10% during the 10 years that the study evaluates (Picot 2012).

The Bertelsmann study states that, in comparison to the total population, young people are especially under-represented when it comes to commitment in politics and political parties. In contrast to this finding, the recent Shell study, which examines the life situation and attitudes of German youth, shows that the interest of young people in politics has been increasing since 2002 (Albert et al. 2010).

Although the degree of political interest lies considerably below the level in the 1970 and 1980s, the share of young people has slightly increased in the past years. The interest in politics of young people 12-14 years old almost doubled between 2002 and 2010 to 21%. The interest in the age group of 15-17-year-olds increased from 20 to 33%. Their political orientation shows a clear preference for politics in the left-wing spectrum. The results of the Shell study show great distrust in major political parties (Albert et al. 2010).

Despite the relatively low interest in politics, young people are willing to engage in political activities. This is especially true if they are personally affected by the issue. For example, 77% would engage in a signature collection, and 44% would participate in a demonstration. Female youths show a higher degree of willingness to participate in political activities than male youths do (Albert et al. 2010).

These results clearly show three things. First of all, young people have little time for voluntary commitment outside the educational system, and political commitment is only one of many possible ways for young people to spend their free time. Second, young people's interest in politics is still way below what it was in the 1970s and 1980s, but it is increasing. And finally, young people distrust major parties and favour a political orientation that lies within the left-wing spectrum.

The appeal of young parties

The German Pirate Party, established in 2006, is one example of a young political party that has experienced a substantial amount of success in a rather short time. According to their fundamental programme (Pirate Party of Germany 2012), the Pirates see themselves as part of the international movement to shape what they call the digital revolution into an information society. Their focus lies in a free Internet and the fight against state regulation of the Internet. The rise of the new party reached its peak in 2010-12. Their entrance into the Berlin State Parliament in 2011 especially marked the political peak of the Pirate Party. In 2011, 14 male members and 1 female member of the Pirate Party were able to enter the Berlin State Parliament after the party gained 9% of the vote in the state elections.

According to political researchers, the rise of the Pirate Party was due to their new form of implementing politics rather than to their political content. According to Falter (2012), the Pirate Party offers a ‘fresh and young’ policy package that fits the dissatisfaction with the established forms of policymaking. As Falter (2012) puts it, the Pirate Party resembles the Green Party in the early 1980s. Unlike the Green Party, the Pirate Party is, in the public perception, reduced to a party that only covers the topic of Internet politics. The rise of the Pirate Party is not a phenomenon restricted to Germany. Rather, the idea evolved from Sweden and led to the founding of the Pirate Party in numerous European countries.

Although the Pirate Party focuses on one topic, the issue of a free Internet especially addresses young people, who have grown up with the Internet. Certainly there are content intersections with other parties in the field of Internet policy, but the difference is the particular emphasis and more radical demands. Therefore, the Pirate Party can be called an outsider on the established party landscape.

Its potential for protest is not restricted to Internet policy but rather includes the area of political practices in the field of inner security, democratic representation, educational politics and drug policy–-all of these being issues drawn from the lives of young people.

According to a study by the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung (Zolleis et al. 2010), the Pirate Party not only focuses on a new and interesting issue but also organises itself in a modern way. The inner life of the political party is for the most part organised in the digital world. Also, the Pirate Party has a different understanding of participation, membership and the relationship to societal groups. Through the Internet, the Pirate Party overcame organisational barriers relatively easily and organised itself without a big apparatus. Within half a year it grew from a few hundred members to almost 12,000 and achieved 850,000 second votes in the general election of 2009. This has not been achieved by any other grass-roots movement (Zolleis et al. 2010).

The core of the self-conception of the Pirate Party is its fundamentally democratic way of decision-making. In contrast to other political parties, the Pirate Party wants to present itself as especially anti-hierarchical. This goal is supposed to be achieved via the new possibilities of information and communication technologies (Zolleis et al. 2010).

Thus, there are three fundamental reasons why the Pirate Party has a high interest potential for young people. First of all, it derives its topics from the living conditions of young people, who also live their lives in the digital sphere. As the results of the Shell study show, young people are more willing to engage in political activities when they revolve around topics that play a role in their own lives. Second, there is general dissatisfaction with the way that politics is implemented. Young people feel a lack of transparency and fairness as established parties share the political power. This is supposed to be overcome by the anti-hierarchical and open structure of the Pirate Party. Third, due to a lack of time, young people engage in political activities if the access is easy and does not take up too much of their time. The way of online participation that the Pirate Party offers perfectly fits the wish for political participation in activities that do not take up too much time.

Challenges for established political parties

Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel mentioned the Pirate Party just one day after the federal elections in 2009: ‘We need to pick up the dialogue with the voters of the Pirate Party and care for the future of the voters, the young voters’ (Zolleis et al. 2010). The rise of the Pirate Party is a clear work assignment for established political parties and especially the youth organisations of these parties.

As Constanze Kurz (2012), speaker of the Chaos Computer Club, posed it, the main opportunity for the established political organisations is a new start concerning the incorporation of new technical possibilities into political participation.

The Junge Union Deutschlands (JU), the biggest political youth organisation in Germany as well as in Europe, has successfully taken up this challenge. Internet politics and new media are one of the core issues of the JU, the youth organisation of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union of Bavaria (Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands/Christlich-Soziale Union in Bay-ern, CDU/CSU). For the JU, Internet politics has to focus on the opportunities that the digital world offers rather than on its risks. But freedom and responsibility have to go hand in hand.

In the digital sphere, freedom sometimes is seen as the absolute solution; and yes, freedom in the Internet has priority before security. But freedom has to be bound to responsibility. In a democratic society, one expression of this responsibility is rules and laws that create a balance of interests.

We see the Internet as an integral part of our political work. In addition to the representation in social networks, it is essential to increasingly use the Internet for transparency and participation. As a youth organisation, we see ourselves as opinion leaders for the CDU/CSU as well as politics in general. Our approximately 120,000 members aged 14-35 show that this approach appeals to young people and leads to their decision to spend their limited free time on political activity.