TY - BOOK

T1 - Centrist Anti-Establishment Parties and Their Struggle for Survival

AU - Engler, Sarah

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © Sarah Engler 2023.

PY - 2023/10/19

Y1 - 2023/10/19

N2 - Centrist Anti-Establishment Parties and Their Struggle for Survival explores the electoral fate of new parties that promise little more than to be better than the “dishonest” political establishment. Initially extremely successful, many centrist anti-establishment parties (CAPs) do not survive more than a few consecutive elections. Nevertheless, some CAPs do endure. How do parties survive when newness is their only selling point? As the first book-length study on this type of party, the volume explores this question in Central and Eastern Europe, where CAPs have dominated politics for more than two decades. The book’s main argument focuses on CAPs’ electoral strategies after their first elections. It derives three 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, the book demonstrates that CAPs only survive when they abandon their initial strategy of pure protest. While strategic change is necessary for party survival, several failed attempts at transformation show that it is not sufficient. Whether a party successfully adopts a new strategy depends on how coherent its voters’ preferences are. Analyses of CAPs’ voter bases show that the more a CAP first attracted voters from both the left and the right, the more it struggles. Ideology, seemingly irrelevant to CAPs’ initial successes, eventually determines CAPs’ fates. These findings have implications for other European countries, where CAP-like parties, such as the Italian Five Star Movement, follow similar trajectories.

AB - Centrist Anti-Establishment Parties and Their Struggle for Survival explores the electoral fate of new parties that promise little more than to be better than the “dishonest” political establishment. Initially extremely successful, many centrist anti-establishment parties (CAPs) do not survive more than a few consecutive elections. Nevertheless, some CAPs do endure. How do parties survive when newness is their only selling point? As the first book-length study on this type of party, the volume explores this question in Central and Eastern Europe, where CAPs have dominated politics for more than two decades. The book’s main argument focuses on CAPs’ electoral strategies after their first elections. It derives three 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, the book demonstrates that CAPs only survive when they abandon their initial strategy of pure protest. While strategic change is necessary for party survival, several failed attempts at transformation show that it is not sufficient. Whether a party successfully adopts a new strategy depends on how coherent its voters’ preferences are. Analyses of CAPs’ voter bases show that the more a CAP first attracted voters from both the left and the right, the more it struggles. Ideology, seemingly irrelevant to CAPs’ initial successes, eventually determines CAPs’ fates. These findings have implications for other European countries, where CAP-like parties, such as the Italian Five Star Movement, follow similar trajectories.

KW - Politics

KW - Anti-Establishment Rhetoric

KW - Central and Eastern Europe

KW - Centrist Anti-Establishment Parties

KW - Corruption

KW - Ideology

KW - New Parties

KW - Party Strategies

KW - Party Survival

KW - Populism

KW - Protest Voting

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/9f786700-e94d-3147-a3e6-3bb296d3830e/

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85188160571&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/oso/9780192873132.001.0001

DO - 10.1093/oso/9780192873132.001.0001

M3 - Monographs

SN - 9780192873132

SN - 019287313X

T3 - Comparative Politics

BT - Centrist Anti-Establishment Parties and Their Struggle for Survival

PB - Oxford University Press

CY - Oxford

ER -