Is There Such a Thing as a Web-Native Party? A Comparison between the Use and Role of Online Tools in the Green and Pirate Party, Germany

The Green Party Germany was founded in 1980, as the political arm of social movements for women’s rights, ecology and peace. The Pirate Party was founded in 2006, and prides itself not only in their focus on internet policies, but also their practical use of the technology. Both parties are driven by a ‘grass-roots democracy’ approach to participation – they want decisions to be made bottom-up, from the grass-roots rather than the party leadership. In this endeavour, both parties use a large variety of online tools for a similar variety of purposes. Based on interviews with members of both parties, observations, and an extensive review of the portfolio of tools, and the statutory rules that govern them, I explore the role of online tools in the organisational context of both parties. The Green Party was founded before the invention of the web, while the Pirate Party would not have been founded without it. This has implications for how both parties conceptualise and implement online tools for their internal processes. I explore the degree to which their use of these online tools distinguishes them, and argue that being ‘web-native’ makes for more than just a procedural difference.