This paper looks at the impact new political parties have had on the dynamics of party competition in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Special attention is paid to political parties that emerged before the 2010 parliamentary elections in the two countries. It has three principal objectives: By employing a process-tracing method, it aims to provide a detailed structured narrative of the emergence and strategic decisions of the founding party leaders. Secondly, it assesses the importance of structural constraints on the success and failure of these new parties. It is argued that factors that prompt the emergence of new parties should be distinguished from those those that enable their growth and expansion. Special attention is paid to differences between ethnic and religious cleavages, the initial support bases of some of these new parties. Thirdly, the paper tentatively outlines the possible factors of new parties'' success and considers impact of new parties on the stability and character of party competition and quality of democratic politics.
