Pirate party trajectories in European multilevel systems: organizational choices and their consequences

Abstract After their initial successes in second-order elections, Pirate parties in Sweden, Germany, and the Czech Republic followed divergent trajectories, with only the Czech Pirates successfully leveraging multilevel structures to secure representation on different tiers. While existing research focuses on contextual factors, such as voter behaviour and social cleavages, we argue that member entry regulations that party elites put in place crucially shape internal commitment and organizational resilience, affecting party organizations’ ability to handle post-breakthrough pressures. Our comparative qualitative analysis, tracing these parties’ electoral trajectories across regional, national, and European levels from their founding years to the 2024 EU election, supports our theoretical expectation. The Swedish and German Pirates’ inclusive membership policies led to structural weaknesses, resulting in membership losses and leadership defections. Conversely, the Czech Pirates’ selective recruitment fostered a more cohesive and resilient organization, enabling them to consolidate and capitalize on initial successes. This study illuminates not only Pirate parties’ development across governmental tiers but also how new parties can transform their initial breakthroughs into sustained political presence in multilevel systems.