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At least four criterions/methods to measure mechanical effects of electoral systems can be distinguished: measuring disproportionality, the reduction in number of parties, the party advantages & the threshold percentages. In this manuscript we focus on the thresholds. We first concentrate on a description of legal, theoretical, & empirical thresholds as measures of mechanical effects. Further, we analyse the relationship between (the natural logarithm) of district magnitude & the empirical threshold & between the empirical threshold & the effective number of parties. As starting point we take districts in Spain, Portugal & Hungary as the level of analysis. We clearly show that there is a negative causal connection between district magnitude & the threshold percentage & between threshold percentage & the number of parties. Tables, Figures. Adapted from the source document.

The introduction to the thematic volume of Statsvetenskaplig tidskrift, which focuses on the role of political parties in democracies, outlines the scope of the volume. Adapted from the source document.

Why do people engage in high-cost political activities such as forming new political parties? Start-up costs are high. Moreover, rewards are unclear and uncertain. Since political parties are collective goods, people demanding new political parties face a collective action problem. It is therefore somewhat puzzling that new parties emerge. Drawing on theories from economics, sociology and political science, I argue that we, in order to understand the emergence of new parties, need to analytically move in on party-entrepreneurs to elucidate what motivates them. Methodologically inspired by the debate on bridging the gap between deductive and inductive strategies, I process-trace and compare three cases. The case studies identify individual level-mechanisms producing the decision toform a new party. People that voice demands within established parties, and face outright rejection, have experienced bad treatment from established politicians. These experiences contribute to disappointment, anger, and a sense of indignation - i.e. "intense emotions"- that mobilize entrepreneurs. Intense emotions create a lust for revenge, which becomes a psychological selective incentive, and is important for understanding why people engage themselves in high-cost political activities. ; Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv