Corrective Parties and Conveyor Coalitions: Explaining the Rise of Third Parties in European Politics

Year 2016, Volume: 21 Issue: 2, 1 - 28, 01.07.2016

Hamid Akın Ünver

Abstract

Third parties have grown increasingly relevant in European politics in recent years, with the rise of status-quo changing parties such as Podemos in Spain, Syriza in Greece, UKIP in Britain and the Front National in France. This article aims to bridge the gap in the comparative politics literature by introducing two new types of third parties in European politics through their bargaining and mediation, crisis behavior and electoral appeal. In doing so, this study proposes that leadership cult, localization of support and rigidness of ideology varies across third parties, due to the existence of two types of third parties; conveyor coalitions and corrective parties. The article uses the case studies of Syriza and Podemos as ‘conveyor coalitions’ and of the Front National and UKIP as ‘corrective parties’. By introducing these two new concepts, the article attempts to bestow future scholarly studies with better tools for predicting and studying rapidly rising populist parties

Keywords

Party Politics, Third Parties, European Politics, Electoral Behavior, Corrective Parties, Conveyor Coalitions

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