New Party Political Actors

Abstract

How may we understand the rise and continued electoral success of new party political actors? This panel examines the reasons that explain the emergence of new relevant parties by focusing both on demand and supply side explanations. With regards to demand, the panel investigates the role of changing societal cleavages and the transformation of the European electorate in an era of crisis and increased contestation. With regards to supply, the panel explores the interplay between party ideology and strategy, as well as the role of party organisation. The focus is both on populist parties, including extreme, radical and centrist, and non-populist political actors in Western and Eastern Europe. Methods include spatial econometric analyses, multivariate analyses, textual analyses and elite interviews. The combined findings from these papers contribute to our understanding of representation and party competition in a changing political landscape.