The New Party Challenge

Kevin Deegan Krause and Tim Haughton marshal an impressive collection of data from 1989 onward in post-communist European countries. [In their] systematic and meticulous analysis, the authors argue that much as with human lives, party births and deaths are intimately connected .[Their] fascinating analysis answers important questions. -- Anna Grzymala-Busse, 'Party Politics'

The New Party Challenge makes a valuable contribution to the field of electoral politics and will be of interest to Central European area specialists for its remarkable depth of empirical detail and to comparative scholars for its thought-provoking insights into the mechanisms behind party system stability and change. -- Hubert Tworzecki, 'Perspectives on Politics'

...the volume is an excellent piece of empirical work, with a strong base in existing research and theory. It is a valuable reminder of how political science can transcend simple or fashionable explanations and study our world from different angles. -- Ben Margulies, LSE Review of Books

In this important book, Tim Haughton and Kevin Deegan-Krause address a puzzle regarding volatility in the supply of and demand for political parties in Central Europe - why do so many parties fail but a few succeed? They address their puzzle in an appropriately complex way but in a lively style that makes for enjoyable as well as convincing reading. The book should not only be required reading for all scholars and students of post-Communist politics but for studies of parties and party systems in many other regions of the globe. -- Stephen Whitefield, University of Oxford

The New Party Challenge provides a deeply original insight into the birth and death of political parties. Deegan-Krause and Haughton use their comprehensive examination of party politics across Central Europe during the decades since the end of communism as a mould for understanding how agency, timing, and structure interact to shape the fate of political parties. This book is comparative politics at its finest and has the making of a classic. -- Catherine E De Vries, Bocconi University

Tim Haughton is Reader (Associate Professor) in European Politics at the University of Birmingham. He has a particular interest in electoral and party politics, electoral campaigning, the role of the past in the politics of the present, and the domestic politics of Central and Eastern Europe. He has published widely in a number of leading scholarly journals, written several articles for the Washington Post and was the co-editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies Annual Review of the European Union from 2008-2016.