Institutionalization of the Czech and Luxembourgish Pirate Parties: a comparative perspective

Abstract

This paper contributes to the debate on party institutionalization by including new parties that lack both connections with existing parties and social movement structures, thus unlikely adepts to institutionalize. To that end, we explore two parliamentary-represented Pirate Parties, from Czechia and Luxembourg, that fit these criteria.Utilizing original interviews with party elites to analyze the structural aspects of the internal party institutionalization. On the other hand, the article examines the external dimension of party institutionalization by focusing on voter loyalty and the party's role within the party system. Additionally, it looks at the objective durability entailing the ability to survive shocks.Our findings offer a comprehensive understanding of the degree of institutionalization of these two similarly successful parties. Particularly in the Czech case, the pragmatic focus on rules and regulations facilitated extensive base-level routinization. Together with early depersonalization and ability to survive shocks, such organizational setup resulted in a relatively high degree of institutionalization. In the Luxembourgish case, the focus on more developed intra-party democracy, together with lower coalition potential of the party associated with its anti-establishment image led to its lower capacity to institutionalize.In conclusion, we provide theory-guided explanations for the institutionalization of these cases. Despite lacking origin in social movement structure, having movement-style founders seems to help these parties to institutionalize. However, genetic imprints do not explain the whole picture, our findings underline the role of pragmatic party elites and learning from successful practices and mistakes of other parties for the ability to adapt and institutionalize.