Newness as a winning formula for new political parties

Abstract

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.