Suchergebnisse

Previous studies on new political parties have assumed that they either represent new or ignored cleavages or issues, or emerge in order to cleanse an ideology deficiently represented by an existing party. Four highly successful parties analyzed in this article manifestly fail to comply with these assumptions. The article proposes a parsimonious two-dimensional typology of new parties refining the one suggested by Lucardie (2000), incorporating a new type of parties based on the project of newness. The four parties analyzed fall into the latter category as they fought on the ideological territory of existing parties yet did not attempt to purify an ideology. It is argued that newness has been an appealing project for new and rejuvenating parties everywhere, and the experiences from new democracies should be taken seriously also by those working on established democracies. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

Previous studies on new political parties have assumed that they either represent new or ignored cleavages or issues, or emerge in order to cleanse an ideology deficiently represented by an existing party. Four highly successful parties analyzed in this article manifestly fail to comply with these assumptions. The article proposes a parsimonious two-dimensional typology of new parties refining the one suggested by Lucardie (2000) , incorporating a new type of parties based on the project of newness. The four parties analyzed fall into the latter category as they fought on the ideological territory of existing parties yet did not attempt to purify an ideology. It is argued that newness has been an appealing project for new and rejuvenating parties everywhere, and the experiences from new democracies should be taken seriously also by those working on established democracies.

Assessing the first four years of EU membership on Estonian party politics indicates that following accession EU perspectives on policies and European policy specialists in small countries may remain sidelined in the decision-making processes within political parties because of the mechanical effects of small numbers of such specialists. At the same time, European parliament elections add an additional event to the electoral calendar and the novel role of MEPs has a potential to affect domestic political competition. However, the constraints posed by common policies may be weakened by the overwhelming domestic concerns of political parties as an analysis of the anatomy of the failure to adopt the single currency shows. Adapted from the source document.