Political participation in the COVID-19 era: the cases of Czech Pirate Party and the Green Party on-line congresses

The Covid-19 has negatively changed many things in various ways, but it also forced individuals and groups to adopt innovative solutions. In the case of political parties, the pandemic practically prohibited classical gathering such as party members meetings. It also affected the electoral campaign as well as party congresses. In some cases, it was too complicated for a party to organize such events during the lockdown(s). The number of changes to do nevertheless depends significantly on the party organization and its prior digitalization. The paper focuses on two Czech parties that experienced an online congress: the Pirates (as the most digitalized party) and the Greens (as the less digitalized one). These parties share some aspects leading to a positive understanding of the situation and volition to switching to a digital environment. Both are relatively small in terms of quantity of members; both are "open-minded" and favourable to implementing such solutions, both have quite young and adaptative members. On the other hand, these parties are quite different, especially in terms of their technical capacities (knowledge and know-how, technical apparatus etc.) and very different in their habits (intraparty life, rules, identities, and way of functioning). The paper analyses their congresses in January 2021, which took place within the COVID-19 restrictions. There was possible to have access to the debates online what is a primary source for the analysis. The paper is working with interviews and official congress materials. The point is to propose an insight into the online congresses itself (which means such a change) and the actors' behaviour confronted with new problems linked to the virtual space. Another part focuses on comparing the solutions granted by both parties in terms of internal discussions and voting.