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<h5 id="spShortDate"> 03/02/2012</h5>
<h1>Liquid Democracy</h1>
<h2>Web Platform Makes Professor Most Powerful Pirate</h2>
<p class="spAuthor">By <a href="mailto:Sven_Becker@spiegel.de">Sven
Becker</a>
</p>
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<div class="spGalleryBig">
<div class="spGalleryBigPic"> <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-79356.html"
title="Photo Gallery: Germany's Pirates Promote Digital
Democracy"></a>
<div class="spImageButtons"> <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-79356.html"
title="Photo Gallery: Germany's Pirates Promote Digital
Democracy"><img
src="cid:part3.04060101.08010705@gmail.com"
class="spIEsixPng" alt="Photos"></a> </div>
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<div class="spCredit">dapd</div>
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<p id="spIntroTeaser"><strong>A linguistics professor in Bamberg
is considered the most powerful member of Germany's
burgeoning Pirate Party, even though he holds no office. Martin
Haase engages in politics almost exclusively through the
Internet using the party's Liquid Feedback software.
The platform is flattening the political hierarchy and is unique
among German political parties. </strong></p>
Martin Haase doesn't have to give any hard-hitting speeches at party
conferences, nor does he spend time at board meetings or in back
rooms to hone his power. When the 49-year-old professor wants to
engage in politics, he just opens his laptop and logs in to Liquid
Feedback, the Pirate Party's online platform for discussing and
voting on political proposals.
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For hours at a time, the political newcomers (the Pirates first
formed in Germany in 2006) discuss their party's goals, and each
member has the opportunity to use Liquid Feedback as a platform to
promote his or her positions -- which can range from the Pirate
Party fielding its own presidential candidate to the appeal to
deescalate the conflict with Iran. It isn't always easy to secure
a majority for a given cause on the site.
<p>Until Haase intervenes, that is. The linguistics professor has
a sort of virtual alliance backing him on Liquid Feedback. Up to
167 fellow party members have periodically delegated their vote
to him on the site, which is more than any other <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/pirate_party/"
target="_self" title="Pirate Party" class="spTextlinkInt">Pirate
Party</a> member can claim. When members recently argued
against extending the term of their national leadership by two
years, Haase intervened. Annual elections of the executive
committee would mean the members would have to spend too much
time dealing with getting reelected rather than devoting their
attention to the real issues. "We need more time for political
work," he said. Haase's vote was like a decree.</p>
<p>
<b>Seven Percent Support Nationwide</b>
</p>
<p>Polls show the Pirate Party enjoying the support of up to 7
percent of voters nationwide. It has <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,787044,00.html"
title="secured seats" class="spTextlinkInt">secured seats</a>
in the parliament of the city-state of Berlin, and in a few
weeks it could also enter the parliaments of two other states,
Saarland in the west and Schleswig-Holstein in the north.</p>
<p>Many voters aren't quite sure what exactly the Pirates stand
for. Perhaps its open and straightforward participation in the
political process will attract more public support. And it's
possible the party will only become attractive through careers
like that of Haase, who became arguably the most powerful Pirate
without even holding an office in the party.</p>
<p>On a winter's day, the professor is standing in a lecture hall
at the University of Bamberg, talking about how language was
used as a political tool at the time of the French Revolution.
After the overthrow of the monarchy, the new leadership wanted
to eliminate dialects and regional languages. It wanted people
to speak only French, so that they could understand the ideas of
the revolution. "Freedom through oppression," Haase says to his
students. It's a view to which he has a strong aversion.</p>
<p>Haase, an impish-looking man with a three-day stubble, holds a
professorship for Romance studies and speaks nine languages. But
the digital world is just as important to him, and it's been
that way for more than 20 years. He had an email address as far
back as 1991, when unfiltered information still flowed from one
Internet exchange point to the next. It was a time of freedom,
the same freedom that continues to influence Haase's thinking
today. "I feel violated when someone tries to block
information," he says.</p>
<p>Starting in 2003 Haase, who goes by the name "Maha" on the
Internet, and others developed the <a
href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,690402,00.html"
title="German version of Wikipedia" class="spTextlinkInt">German
version of Wikipedia</a>. He later became a member of the
board of the Chaos Computer Club, the globally influential
German hacking association. Initially, he was skeptical about
the Pirates. Haase saw how activist friends became interested in
the organization but then gave up because it felt too chaotic to
them. </p>
<p>This changed in 2009, with the Access Impediment Act, pushed
through by then-German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen
under the previous government to block websites that contained
child pornography. Fearing it would violate freedom of speech by
blocking websites and that it might set a precedent for further
incursions on Net freedom, Web activists disparagingly dubbed
the family minister "Zensursula," a play on the German word for
censorship and the politician's first name. The law was passed
and signed by Germany's president, but it has not been
implemented by the government. Earlier this year Chancellor
Angela Merkel's government said it would move to delete any
websites that feature child pornography rather than block them.
The Pirate Party's popularity surged as a result of the
protests. </p>
<p>
<b>A Net Movement Takes Shape</b>
</p>
<p>The Net movement in Germany began in earnest around the same
time as the "Zensursula" debate, and the Pirates became its
strongest political wing. In an unexpected victory, the Pirate
Party captured 0.9 percent of the vote in the June 2009
elections for the European Parliament, the legislative body in
the European Union that is directly elected by citizens of the
member states. Haase joined the party the very next day. For
years, he had been sharply critical of the established parties
for their incompetence on matters relating to Internet policy,
but now he had found a political home. "It had a therapeutic
effect on me," says Haase.</p>
<p>In the established parties, like the center-right Christian
Democratic Union (CDU), the center-left Social Democratic Party
(SPD) and the Green Party, he would have had to fight his way to
the top, but not with the Pirates. Haase writes his own blogs,
has more than 5,000 followers on Twitter and produces the Pirate
podcast "Klabautercast" ("Hobgoblincast"). As a result, he
quickly made a name for himself in the community.</p>
<p>He also used his podcast to introduce a family and gender
policy concept. Haase wants marriage and registered life
partnership to be legally equal and to eliminate the tax
advantages in Germany that are bestowed exclusively on
heterosexual marriages. He also wants the government to stop
documenting the gender of its citizens.</p>
<p>Together with allies, he campaigned for his proposal on Twitter
and in Pirate forums, and then he introduced it on Liquid
Feedback, where he soon found enough supporters. Haase won the
non-binding vote on the Internet and, in November 2010, took the
results to the party's national convention. His motion was
accepted.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://liquidfeedback.org/" target="_blank"
title="Official Site: Liquid Feedback" class="spTextlinkExt">open
source Liquid Feedback software</a> -- developed in Berlin and
launched by the Pirates in 2010 -- is unique in German party
politics. With the platform, issues that would previously only
gradually find their way to the national leadership through
local, district and state organizations can quickly gain
momentum and importance, so that they can then be voted on at
party conferences.</p>
<p>"It is difficult to vote against a clear opinion that is
emerging on Liquid Feedback," says Haase, who, when he isn't
teaching in Bamberg, lives in Berlin and is a member of the
party's state organization there.</p>
<p>
<b>A Powerful Professor</b>
</p>
<p>Some fellow party members have so much confidence in Haase that
they have given him their permanent vote on Liquid Feedback,
meaning he can speak for them on all issues. This is referred to
as "global delegation." Other supporters give him their blanket
votes on specific issues only, such as education ("subject area
delegation") or on a specific issue ("issue delegation").</p>
<p>The professor is one of the most active members of the online
platform. He has submitted almost 30 motions on Liquid Feedback,
and almost all have been accepted, says Haase. His ideas on
education, integration and family policy, for example, shape the
party's profile. Haase has become the digital éminence grise of
the Pirates, even though he has never held party office.</p>
<p>Even Pirate Party Chairman Sebastian Nerz frequently gets a
taste of the power the professor wields with his virtual votes.
He and Haase have never met in person, but they have tangled
with each other online, disagreeing over family policy or
procedural questions on Liquid Feedback. Haase prevailed in both
cases.</p>
<p>In other parties, when an ordinary member challenges the
national chairman it triggers a political earthquake. In the
Pirate Party, it's taken for granted.</p>
<p>"Maha doesn't grandstand, and yet he is approachable at any
time," says Andreas Baum, the party's floor leader in the Berlin
city parliament. "People trust him because he has never come
across as a schemer," says Pavel Mayer, another Pirate Party
member of the Berlin city parliament. For the two men, Haase
embodies the concept of the grassroots Pirate, who seeks to
bring about change but isn't interested in leadership positions.
This appeals to people in a party that rejects authority.</p>
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The Pirates call their political approach "liquid democracy,"
meaning that for them everything flows, and there is indeed
something fluid about the way they reach consensus on the
Internet. Once gained, though, influence can disappear just as
quickly.
<p>This is also an experience Haase has had with Liquid Feedback.
Many pirates gave him their votes in 2010, when the party was
seeking to define its position on the concept of an
unconditional basic income guarantee. They were confident that
Haase would support it. To their surprise, however, he
transferred his votes to another party member, who voted against
the motion, and was defeated.</p>
<p>As a linguist, says Haase, he was also opposed to the
initiative because of linguistic weaknesses. But this didn't
convince his supporters, and about 50 Pirates promptly withdrew
the votes they had assigned to him. Haase eventually approved a
revised motion, and since then the number of members supporting
him has gone up again.</p>
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<p><i>Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan</i></p>
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