LAUSR

ABSTRACT This contribution investigates how the structure of new political parties’ success influences their survival. Improving on the standard of previous studies, we argue in particular that there is no simple linear relationship between vote shares and the likelihood of party survival. Rather, the probability of survival increases sharply if new parties gain enough votes to secure representation. Furthermore, we argue that new parties should be more likely to survive when they are successful at the subordinate (local) level. We test our expectations using a new data set that includes information on 107 newly founded Czech regional parties. Our results show that studies on party lifespans and the electoral success of new political parties require an understanding of the impact of representational thresholds. Most importantly, the reported analyses indicate that models of party survival need to consider the significance of parliamentary representation and the multilevel structure of party competition.