This book examines the new anti-establishment parties electorally succeeding at the expense of their established counterparts and argues that party organization matters for the electoral success of anti-establishment parties. It explores a relationship between these parties ́ electoral success and their party organization. Using a framework to explain the role of organizational features such as local party branches, party membership, and party elites in this process, it reveals how they help parties to be more stable, cohesive, and legitimate; a state that facilitates better conditions for electoral success. It also shows that control over party organization is achieved partially by the existence of a corporate network associated with party leaders ́ businesses. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of party politics and political parties, anti-establishment politics, and Eastern European politics.

Recent electoral success of the Freedom Party in Austria, List Pim Fortuyn in The Netherlands, the People's Party in Denmark and the National Front in France have demonstrated the appeal of parties that challenge the political establishment. This book seeks to explain why these parties have achieved a political breakthrough, but unlike other studies in the area does not concentrate on only one type of party. Instead it attempts to determine preconditions for the success of anti-political establishment parties in general, avoiding any time specific or ideology specific explanations.

This dissertation examines two interconnected research questions: What conditions give rise and lead to the electoral success of anti-establishment parties and what are the consequences of this electoral success? Literature concerning anti-establishment parties fails to investigate this phenomenon in its entirety by focusing disproportionately on the electoral success of these parties neglecting the consequences of this electoral success. Although the electoral success of anti-establishment parties and the subsequent consequences have different theoretical underpinnings, the effects that anti-establishment parties have on individual parties and the party system are dependent upon the electoral success of these of parties. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on both the electoral success and the consequences of anti-establishment parties in Western Europe. Concerning electoral success, this dissertation offers a new approach to the literature by arguing that anti-establishment parties, regardless of their placement on the political spectrum, are born out of the dissatisfaction towards traditional parties within the electorate. Using quantitative analyses of eighteen Western European countries covering the time period 1970-2005, this dissertation offers a unified analysis of anti-establishment parties, regardless of their placement on the political spectrum, examining the political, social, and economic conditions that give rise to the anti-establishment party phenomenon. The findings indicate that while the factors leading to the emergence of anti-establishment parties may be the same regardless of the placement of these parties on the political spectrum, the factors leading to their electoral success are dependent upon their ideological orientation. Furthermore, the electoral success of these new parties has consequences for other individual parties and the broader party system. This dissertation argues that the existence of these parties alone is not enough to accomplish this aim; these parties must be seen as threats to existing mainstream parties on either the left or the right or in some cases, both. In order to counter the threat from these anti-establishment parties, traditional parties may change their ideological positions or organizational structures. Utilizing qualitative (face-to-face interviews with party elites) and evidence from party manifestos from 1970-2005 in six countries, these analyses indicate that the electoral success of anti-establishment parties affects individual parties by altering the ideological placement, particularly on issues relevant to anti-establishment party electoral success. To a lesser extent, traditional parties alter their organizational structures (i.e., allocating more power to rank-and-file members, regional, and local branches), in order to counter this new electoral threat. Moreover, the electoral success of anti-establishment parties causes instability within the broader party system. Utilizing quantitative, statistical methods to analyze eighteen western European countries between 1970 and 2005, this dissertation finds that the electoral success of anti-establishment parties increases the amount of electoral volatility and the amount of polarization both within the system and between traditional parties. However, anti-establishment parties do not mobilize the electorate leading to increases voter turnout in these eighteen countries. Finally, anti-establishment parties, by gaining seats in national legislatures, upset the traditional coalitional dynamics. As such, the electoral success of anti-establishment parties leads to shorter coalitional governments within the party systems of Western Europe.

This book examines the new anti-establishment parties electorally succeeding at the expense of their established counterparts and argues that party organization matters for their electoral success. It explores a relationship between these parties’ electoral success and their party organization. Using a framework to explain the role of organizational features such as local party branches, party membership, and party elites in this process, it reveals how they help parties to be more stable, cohesive, and legitimate; a state that facilitates better conditions for electoral success. It also shows that control over party organization is achieved partially by the existence of a corporate network associated with party leaders’ businesses. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of party politics and political parties, anti-establishment politics, and Eastern European politics.

How do parties survive when newness is their only selling point? This scholarly volume explores the most successful group of new political parties in Central and Eastern Europe: centrist anti-establishment parties (CAPs). These parties often claim to be neither 'left nor right', strongly criticize the political establishment, and instead promise 'corruption-free' politics. Initially extremely successful, many CAPs do not survive more than a few consecutive electionswhile others do endure. As the first book-length study on this type of party, Sarah Engler explores this question and focuses on CAPs' electoral strategies after their first elections. It derivesthree strategies of survival that lead to more sustainable electoral support: a reframed protest strategy, an anti-corruption strategy, and a mainstream strategy. Combining quantitative data from an original expert survey with qualitative evidence from elite interviews with MPs, party officials and anti-corruption experts, the author demonstrates that CAPs only survive when they abandon their initial strategy of pure protest. While strategic change is necessary for partysurvival, several failed attempts at transformation show that it is not sufficient. Ideology, seemingly irrelevant to CAPs' initial successes, eventually determines CAPs' fates. Engler also examines howthese findings have implications for other European countries.Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterized 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 .The series is edited by Nicole Bolleyer, Chair of Comparative Political Science, Geschwister Scholl Institut, LMU Munich and Jonathan Slapin, Professor ofPolitical Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.

This book focuses on the rise of new challenger parties and the magnitude of their impact on political systems and the existing political order in Southern Europe in the aftermath of the Great Recession. Examining Podemos (Spain), SYRIZA (Greece), and M5S (Italy), it highlights the differences and commonalities between them and their voters. The book reveals whether these parties were effectively able to change the status quo represented by mainstream parties and, secondly, whether they created novel organizational structures capable of “bring the people in”, that is, of re-mobilizing disenfranchised voters and of re-inventing the concept of participation within the political party. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of party politics, representation, leadership, political elites, public opinion, populism, and more broadly to comparative politics, European studies, and contemporary European history.

The elections to the 18th Knesset (legislature of Israel) were held on February 10, 2009, almost three years after the elections to the 17th Knesset and approximately twenty months before the original date set for them to be held. The elections are best understood in the context of the wars that were at each end of Ehud Olmert's government tenure, corruption scandals involving the prime minister, and the failure of Tzipi Livni, the newly elected head of the ruling center party, Kadima to form a new coalition following Olmert's resignation. The election campaign of 2009 began with the resignation of Ehud Olmert in the shadow of his corruption scandals and issues of integrity and clean government. This was followed by the world financial crisis, which directed attention towards the economic dimension and performance of the candidates. On the face of it, the campaign was cut short when military action began in Gaza. Still, the election was on the minds of candidates, and the question of who can best ensure security prevailed in the campaign. It becamepersonalized and focused on the candidates: the two candidates who had once headed the government and aspired to return, Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, and the chairperson of Kadima, Tzipi Livni, who was running for the first time as head of a party. The Elections in Israel 2009 will be of particular interest to those concerned with comparative politics and elections in an open society. This volume is the latest in the series begun in 1969.

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 focus 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. 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 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.