New Parties in Old Systems: Persistence and Decline in Seventeen Democracies

by Nicole Bolleyer

Overview

New Parties in Old Party Systems addresses a pertinent yet neglected issue in comparative party research: why are some new parties that enter national parliament able to defend a niche on the national level, while other fail to do so? Unlike most existing studies, which strongly focuses on electoral (short-term) success or particular party families, this book examines the conditions for the organizational persistence and electoral sustainability of the 140, organizationally new parties that entered their national parliaments in seventeen democracies from 1968 to 2011. It covers a wide variety of programmatic profiles and performance trajectories. The book presents a new theoretical perspective on party institutionalization, which considers the role of both structural and agential factors driving party evolution. It thereby fills some important lacunae in current cross-national research. First, it theorizes the interplay between structural (pre)conditions for party building (party origin and modes of party formation) and the choices of party founders and leaders, whose interplay shapes parties' institutionalization patterns crucial for their evolution, before and after entering national parliament. Second, this approach is substantiated empirically by advanced statistical methods assessing the role of party origin for new party persistence and sustainability. These analyses are combined with a wide range of in-depth case studies capturing how intra-organizational dynamics shape party success and failure. By accounting for new parties' longer-term performance, the study sheds light on the conditions under which the spectacular rise of new parties in advanced democracies is likely to substantively change old party systems.

Comparative Politics is a series for students, teachers, and researchers of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199646067
Publisher:	Oxford University Press, USA
Publication date:	09/02/2013
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Nicole Bolleyer, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Exeter

Nicole Bolleyer is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter. She studied at the University of Mannheim, the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and holds a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence. She has published widely in the areas of comparative federalism and comparative party politics. Her numerous articles have appeared in journals such as the European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, Party Politics, the European Political Science Review, Governance, Comparative European Politics, Political Studies, and Publius: The Journal of Federalism. New Parties in Old Party Systems is her second monograph published in the Comparative Politics Series. Her first book Intergovernmental Cooperation was published in 2009.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Disentangling Dimensions and Sources of Party Success: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges
3. Between Leadership and Structure Formation: The Challenges of Party Institutionalization
4. Patterns of New Party Persistence and Sustainability in 17 Democracies
5. The Leadership-Structure Dilemma in Green and Religious New Parties: Short-term Trouble but Long-Term Endurance through Fully-Fledged Institutionalization
6. The Leadership-Structure Dilemma in New Liberal and New Left Parties: Short-Term Success but Long-Term Decline through Partial Institutionalization
7. The Leadership-Structure Dilemma in Rooted New Right Parties: Reinforcing or Undermining Advantageous Formative Conditions?
8. The Leadership-Structure Dilemma in Entrepreneurial New Right Parties: From Disintegration to Fully-Fledged Institutionalization
9. Conclusions