Institutional Constraints vs. Hidden Strengths: Re-election Strategies of New Parties

Party funding regimes and electoral systems are two ways in which lawmakers can influence the number of political parties with access to legitimacy and to parliament. Of course, democratic lawmakers tend to belong to political parties. In fact, if the cartel party thesis is to be believed, lawmakers belong to dominant parties which have become self-serving state actors with the power to keep challengers weak or even out. However, these challengers on the receiving end of this alleged sabotage are not without power either, especially when they have already managed to cross the threshold of representation once. This paper uses a new dataset of newly legislative parties (i.e. they first entered parliament in or after 1968 in 17 established democracies) to scrutinize the strategies a party can deploy to repeat its first electoral success. In which circumstances does a party go to the next election alone, in alliance or as part of a merger? A new party often has trouble keeping its activists and representatives on board when confronted with the first pressures of office. Are there circumstances encouraging MPs of new parties to strike out on their own and go into the new elections with yet another new party? By deciding on a strategy of how to go into the new elections, it is (partially) up to newly elected parties now to either increase of decrease the number of parties in the system. This paper explores the institutional determinants of that decision.