How Can One Assess the Level of Party Newness, Continuity, and Change? Some Examples from Poland

Abstract

Even if political parties have new labels, they often can be perceived as a continuation of an earlier existing grouping. The main goal of this article is to discuss how to assess party novelty and congruence (similarity with a previously existing party) and, in particular, to present the framework for analysis of party continuity and newness. Some Polish political parties (Law and Justice [PiS], Civic Platform [PO], Confederation Liberty and Independence [K WiN]) are used to illustrate the approach. We aim to answer the question of whether they were genuinely new when they entered the parliament for the first time or whether they could be considered as a continuation of previously existing groupings in terms of ideological identity, candidates, leadership, and their political elites. The research also encompasses analyses of further party development in these areas to demonstrate that our framework can also be used to measure changes occurring within existing parties. We go beyond researching newness as a dichotomous variable, outline the areas in which party newness can be measured, define indicators of novelty and congruence, and operationalize them given the conditions in Central and East European countries. Then we measure the level of party newness in each of these areas, using ranges from being a genuinely new party to a perfect congruence with an earlier existing grouping.