Denise Laroze (University of Essex): Policy space and opportunity to enter: when a party collapses

The entry and success of new parties has become a regular event in modern democracies. From the emergence of green to protest parties, new movements have entered the electoral arena. This paper addresses one of the less studied aspects of new parties: the dynamic process of party exit and entry into politics. The paper argues that changes to the party system, produced by the collapse of a political party, can lead to the successful entrance of new parties in the next election. The premise is that one party’s loss is a future one’s gain. The empirical results provide strong evidence that the size of the collapsed party has a substantive impact on the level of new parties’ success.