German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory • Hacker News Board

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#31

Post by eru » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:37 PM UTC

mhd wrote: post #29

eru wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing is that neo-liberalism actually used to have a different meaning in Germany. That meaning also had a synonym called Ordoliberalism ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordoliberalism ), that didn't change so much in meaning. Anyway, the Pirateparty also has a substantial social democratic background, so calling their stance social liberalism is probably more sensible. (Using the European meaning of liberalism.…

I was basically quoting the terms from the interview. You're right, social liberalism is probably the more appropriate term. We do seem to like the word "social" here in Germany, even the "right-wing" parties like to use it, albeit not in the strictly socialist sense, of course. No prosperity gospel here. Probably because all the Calvinists ended up somewhere else…

Some historians even use the term social-monarchy (as opposed to social-democracy) to describe the last German Empire.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#32

Post by Cass » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 3:59 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #21

hef19898 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which electoral system is better is another discussion. Both have their flaws, but a pretty good discription of how elections work in Germany.

The Economist had a nice line: "Germany is a country that only works in practice."

I don't suppose you have a link to whatever article's that from? I'd like to read it, but google's not bringing it up.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#33

Post by eru » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

Cass wrote: post #32

eru wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Economist had a nice line: "Germany is a country that only works in practice."

I don't suppose you have a link to whatever article's that from? I'd like to read it, but google's not bringing it up.

I think it was from the Economist's special report on Germany. See the series of articles starting at http://www.economist.com/node/15641069?story_id=15641069 .

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#34

Post by Cass » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:04 PM UTC

axx wrote: post #13

You should also keep in mind, that the german pirate party isn't only about copyright stuff. They're also "the only" party in germany that represents the interests of web-centric citizens. While the conservative parties try to regulate the internet in germany more an more (you know, germany has A LOT of regulations, everywhere) the pirate party is a good alternative. I'm really happy about this movement, even if they…

In addition to the things you mentioned, I'm also quite happy about the existence of a party containing many young, inexperienced members in the government. They seem to be reinventing the wheel at least partly out of ignorance of the way things have always been done in German politics, and while that does lead to some chaos within the party, in some cases they're reinventing it for the better.

Even if they don't manage to push through any meaningful changes at all by themselves, their mere presence seems to be enough to shake up the traditional parties, and show them that they need to be more open and inclusive towards the general public, and particularly younger voters.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#35

Post by mhellmic » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:05 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #8

For the political hackers: note that these victories are made possible by Germany's proportional representation system, which guarantees seats in parliaments to any party which gets more than 5% of the popular vote across the state/city/whatever. Thus parties with broad but shallow support do get represented in government. The electoral systems in the UK-derived nations (geographic districts only, first past the post…

Just to be clear, the pirate party (with 7.4%) is in the parliament, not in the government. The government will most likely consist of a coalition of the parties CDU and SPD, so that the Pirates will be in the opposition.

I am sure you meant that, but it wasn't clear to me.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#36

Post by mseebach » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:24 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #20

hef19898 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which electoral system is better is another discussion. Both have their flaws, but a pretty good discription of how elections work in Germany.

One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…

On feature of (Nordic party list) PR that irks me: With near perfect proportionality, you loose (geographic) ties to a specific block of voters. Because a large proportion of MPs are elected on the coat tails of "vote magnets" and the general performance of the party, the party becomes more important than the candidate. Owing your mandate to an artefact of the D'Hondt method and not the fact that you got more votes than the other guy does no favours to your attachment to voters.

I'm fairly new to the UK, but it seems beneficial to me that MPs have exactly one well defined constituency and all voters have exactly one MP (even if it's one they didn't vote for) that represents them in parliament.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#37

Post by mjwalshe » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:30 PM UTC

jeltz wrote: post #25

davidw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…

This also happens in the Britsh system with regional parties. For example the Bloc Quebecois have often had way larger political power than their voter base. Edit: Nothing against the Bloc (I am from Sweden), they are just an example.

And Poor John Major was held to ransom by the hardline Unionist parties in the UK a few years ago.

Aurgaubly the same happens in the US as the party system is very weak and there is no comback from rebelling against the party line.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#38

Post by maytsch » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:45 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #20

hef19898 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which electoral system is better is another discussion. Both have their flaws, but a pretty good discription of how elections work in Germany.

One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…

This isn't really a problem of the proportional system - given a large party narrowly over 50%, relatively small interest groups within the party will start gaining extraordinary weight as well. Just think of the tea party.

In my opinion, the upside of splitting the parties up is that it makes these particular power struggle more visible, and allows parties more flexibility in ignoring interest groups when a majority can be found elsewhere.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#39

Post by yxhuvud » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #20

hef19898 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which electoral system is better is another discussion. Both have their flaws, but a pretty good discription of how elections work in Germany.

One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…

Here in sweden the party decides who are on the list, but the voter can prioritize candidates they like.

Re: German Pirate Party Scores Second State Victory

#40

Post by eru » Mon, Mar 26, 2012, 4:59 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #30

davidw wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One serious flaw of the proportional system, like Italy and Israel both have, is that a small party can be the deciding vote, and have a much larger weight than it merits. For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... This happens regularly in Ital…

> For instance: center-left party gets 48% of the vote, communists (they still exist here) get 4% of the vote. To form a majority, the large party must strike a deal with the small party, which can dictate conditions... Or they simply look for someone on the other side. E.g. in Germany, SPD (social democrats) routinely ignore Left (socialists and communists) and instead deals with the conservative CDU. It's not like…

In practice, they use the 5% threshold in Germany to keep the number of parties down to a reasonable limit. Israel doesn't have this limit. I don't know whether they have a limit at all, or whether it's just rather low.

I don't like the arbitrariness of the 5% threshold. But it seems to work.