Survival of the fittest. Comparing entry and exit among niche and mainstream parties in advanced democracies, 1945–2011

Past the saturation point: Why voters switch from mainstream to niche parties and vice‐versa

“…Finally, our results complement previous research on the effects of PSS. We already know that mainstream parties will not increase the nicheness of their platform when PSS increases (van de Wardt & van Witteloostuijn, 2021), while PSS does drive mainstream parties out of business (van de Wardt et al., 2020). We provide evidence for one of the micro‐level causal mechanisms that voters defect to niche parties when the system is oversaturated.…”

“…We define PSS as the difference between the predicted ENEP based on the ‘carrying capacity’ of the party system and the observed ENEP (Lowery et al., 2013; van de Wardt et al., 2020; van de Wardt & van Witteloostuijn, 2021). If, for instance, five effective parties contest an election, while only four effective parties were predicted based on the carrying capacity, the party system is oversaturated by one party.…”

“…Before developing our hypotheses about why voters switch from mainstream to niche parties and vice‐versa, it is useful to clarify that we define agrarian, ethnic, green, radical left, radical right, regionalist and special issue parties as niche, and Christian democratic, conservative, liberal and social democratic parties as mainstream. Hence, we combine a saliency‐based (Bischof, 2017; Meguid, 2008; Wagner, 2012a) conception of nicheness with a spatial one (Adams et al., 2006): Parties can mine a niche in a party system by focusing on other issues than economic left–right, but they can also accomplish this by taking an extreme position on the economic left/right dimension (also see van de Wardt et al., 2020).…”

“…PSS is related to the effective number of electoral parties (ENEP), but, as we will argue and show below, it is more relevant when it comes to vote switching to niche parties. We conceptualize PSS as the difference between the present ENEP and the predicted ENEP based on the so‐called ‘carrying capacity’ of the party system (Lowery et al., 2013; van de Wardt et al., 2020; van de Wardt & van Witteloostuijn, 2021). As explained below, the carrying capacity of party systems is determined by the electoral system, societal heterogeneity, diversity of the issues emphasized by parties, and the spread in voter preferences.…”

I vote NOTA: Ideological Expanses of Partisanship in India

“…Despite the fact that ideological issues are limited for political parties at a given point of time (Lowery et al, 2013;van de Wardt et al, 2021), India continues to have a multi-party system with hundreds of political parties. On the other hand, it has been argued that political parties in India (Suri et al, 2016), like in other newer democracies (Diamond & Gunther, 2001;Mainwaring, 1999), are non-ideological.…”