[pp.int.general] Democracy in PPI

[Eric Priezkalns]

I'm grateful to the people working in PPI to support the national  
Pirate Parties.  However, speaking as someone who was active in  
founding the UK party, I have some concerns about PPI's role and how  
it communicates with the national parties.  I'll try to make some  
constructive observations - I'm not interested in starting a flame war  
- and I hope that everyone reading can accept my comments in the  
spirit they are offered.

My first observation is about communication.  There is an expectation  
that pirates communicate with the PPI through its channels - email,  
chat and the conference.  Whilst that is not wrong, I see a lot less  
evidence of PPI reaching out and making contact to the national  
parties through their channels, or evidence of the PPI talking  
directly with the national party leaders.  Forgive me if other  
national parties have a different experience, as obviously I'm basing  
this on what I've seen in PPUK.  There's nothing wrong with PPI having  
its own channels, but if there is a requirement to communicate using  
PPI channels, it places the burden on the national parties rather than  
on the PPI, even though PPI is meant to support the national parties  
and not the other way around.  When engaged with doing a lot of hard  
work in a national party, it is reasonable to question if the time and  
effort to engage with PPI leads to an actual benefit for the national  
party - or if it is just drawing time and resources away from other  
tasks like campaigning and building the national party's membership.   
Communication is a key area for the PPI to demonstrate how it supports  
the national parties.

My second point is linked to why I'm writing this now.  I see that the  
PPI conference is scheduled for April and that two delegates per  
nation are expected to attend.  I sympathize that it is difficult to  
pick the perfect time for an event like this, but it is likely that  
the UK's national elections will be held in April.  We will not know  
for sure until the election is called.  This will be the first  
election the UK party will fight, it will likely take up all our  
financial and human resources, and naturally we want to see our  
members concentrating their efforts on winning votes in that  
election.  It would be wrong to send two senior representatives of the  
party to this conference at such a time, and if we're not sending  
senior representatives, then there is little point in sending any  
representatives.  This makes me think that the scheduling of the  
conference is symptomatic of the flaws in how PPI communicates with  
national parties.

My third observation is that it is not necessary to organize a meeting  
in order to make decisions and reflect the views of national parties.   
It is also peculiarly old-fashioned for a movement born on the  
internet.   The inevitable result is that PPI will be biased towards  
the European parties that find it easiest to send people who can  
attend in person.  As the purpose of PPI is seemingly to support the  
development of parties worldwide, I find this to be a very serious  
problem with how PPI is managed.  Europe is not the centre of the  
world.  Nobody can credibly expect a fair representation from South  
America or Asia, but the PPI should not be Euro-centric in its  
outlook.  If it is, call it the PP Europe and at least make it clear  
that the organization has a more limited scope.  It is reasonable to  
ask why national parties should have to send delegates to attend in  
person just to be part of the decision-making process.  When the UK  
party suggested holding a national conference, many members raised  
their concerns that it would exclude those unable to travel and  
attend, even though the conference was not going to make national  
decisions.  PPUK allows all its members to vote electronically.   
Decisions are hence either made by a vote of members or are made by  
the people they elect to positions of responsibility.  I fail to see  
why PPI cannot take a similar approach, making it much easier for all  
parties to be involved in decision-making.

Finally, the decision to have two delegates per party, and presumably  
two votes per party is also peculiar, and I think most people who  
think it through would agree it is flawed.  In most cases where  
decisions are made on behalf of a federation, the decision-making  
process balances two requirements.  The first is that every  
constituent of the federation has a voice.  The second is that the  
larger constituents have more influence than smaller constituents.   
This compromise is evident in both Europe and the United States.  I  
have no desire to offend Luxembourgers, but I hope they would agree  
there is something unbalanced about a system where they have an equal  
influence to the representatives from Germany.  The question of  
proportionality opens up another problem - which is how to measure the  
size of each party and hence much influence each party should have.   
Different democratic systems will mean different approaches to  
recruitment in each nation.  The Swedish approach of free membership  
will not be appropriate for every country, and it would be obtuse to  
suggest that the membership numbers are a like-for-like measure of the  
support each national party has.

In summary, I have not been inclined to get involved in PPI because,  
put simply, I have not seen much evidence that my putting time into  
PPI is an effective way of securing votes in the UK - my nation.   
Nobody will ever vote for the PPI, so it can only be a benefit if it  
helps the national parties to get more votes.  Seeing the direction  
PPI is taking, with the emphasis on decision-making through a  
conference that people are expected to physically attend, causes me to  
worry that the current governance of PPI is poorly designed to serve  
the PPI's mission.  If I were to attend the PPI conference, I would be  
pretty confident that no matter what statutes were passed, none would  
make a difference to how a single person would vote in the upcoming UK  
election.  That makes it a distraction from my main priorities.   
However, if there are many other people who feel like me, then the PPI  
is in danger of becoming disconnected from some of the parties it is  
supposed to assist.

I politely ask that the PPI's current core team reviews these  
comments.  In the spirit of really working together for common goals,  
I ask you to come back with constructive proposals for how the PPI can  
be fairly governed by, and connected to, all of the national Pirate  
Parties around the world, without exception.

Best regards,

Eric Priezkalns