Deterring new party entry? The impact of state regulation on the permeability of party systems

Abstract

Despite the growing amount of party regulation, we still have a limited understanding of the effect that party laws have on party systems and political competition. Notwithstanding predictions that incumbent parties adopt rules which favour their own position, found in both the cartel party thesis and the rational actor view of politics, we continue to witness the frequent appearance of new political parties, some of which successfully enter parliament. Using comparative electoral data and a newly built dataset on party regulation in post-war Europe, we trace the changes in the rules governing political parties and explore the effect of party regulation on the number of successful new entrants. Overall, we find that more regulation significantly decreases the number of successful new entries, while high electoral volatility and the legacy of post-communism increase the amount of successful new party entries in the legislature. Our nalysis further shows that the existence of public funding and the payout threshold have no effect on the permeability of party systems.

Introduction: Gender Politics and Party Regulation. Quotas and Beyond

“…At the same time, the rather new subject of party regulation has taken an important place within the party politics field. Researchers have observed the growing effect of regulations on parties as organisations (Casal Bértoa et al forthcoming), on party finance (Biezen and Kopecký 2007), on party activism (Whiteley 2011), and on parties' electoral strategies (Biezen and Rashkova 2012). However, despite drawing an increasing interest, party regulation has not been examined from a gender perspective yet.…”

“…Despite the increased state regulation of party activity, organisation and behaviour, this phenomenon has hitherto received relatively little comparative scholarly attention and the empirical and normative dimensions of the patterns of party regulation are only now beginning to be systematically charted (e.g., Drawing particular attention to party laws, Casal Bé rtoa et al (2014) contend that laws on parties regulate different aspects of the party as an entity, from how parties need to be defined or structured, to specific rules about party finance and external control over party activities. Furthermore, party laws affect the development and functioning of party systems by, for instance, acting as barriers to new entrants (Biezen and Rashkova 2012) or by determining the fate of 'a specific group of parties -those between the electoral and payout threshold' (Casal Bé rtoa and Spirova 2013).…”

Parties between thresholds: State subsidies and party behaviour in post-communist democracies

“…Other scholars, on the contrary, explicitly or implicitly adopt the "cartelization" thesis posed by Katz and Mair according to which existing political parties will collusively attempt to reduce "the impact of those seeking to challenge the political status quo" either by introducing a system of public funding to those parties with a certain level of electoral support or, when already in place, by increasing the legal requirements for having access to those subsidies (Scarrow, 2006: 629;Biezen and Rashkova, 2014). The idea is that by allowing the monopoly of state resources by the main/relevant political parties and/or discouraging the entry of new parties to the system, public funding can contribute to the cartelization and, therefore, freezing of the party system (Katz and Mair, 1995: 15;Biezen, 2004).…”

“…Biezen and Rashkova, 2014;Birnir, 2005;Piccio, 2012;Scarrow, 2006). The study of the historical development (i.e.…”

Constitutionalizing Power: How Do Rules Legitimize the Executive?

“…Following Biezen and Rashkova (2014) and Biezen and Borz (2012), the dichotomous groups of interest are -Eastern vs. Western Europe, New vs. Old Democracy, Continuous vs. Discontinuous Democracy, and Monarchy vs. Republic. The results from this analysis are reported in Table 2.…”