Political Party Mortality in Established Party Systems: A Hierarchical Competing Risks Approach

Abstract

Existing scholarship offers few answers to fundamental questions about the mortality of political parties in established party systems. Linking party research to the organization literature, we conceptualize two types of party death, dissolution and merger, reflecting distinct theoretical rationales. They underpin a new framework on party organizational mortality theorizing three sets of factors: those shaping mortality generally and those shaping dissolution or merger death exclusively. We test this framework on a new dataset covering the complete life cycles of 184 parties that entered 21 consolidated party systems over the last five decades, resorting to multilevel competing risks models to estimate the impact of party and country characteristics on the hazards of both types of death. Our findings not only show that dissolution and merger death are driven by distinct factors, but also that they represent separate logics not intrinsically related at either the party or systemic level.

Party survival in parliament: Explaining party durability in lower‐house parliaments

“…Parties that survive their fourth term in parliament are very likely to keep winning seats. This result compliments the current knowledge about party survival (e.g., Beyens et al 2016;Bolleyer & Bytzek 2013Bolleyer et al 2018;Dinas et al 2015;Van de Wardt et al 2017). Considering the other results of this study, the finding that most parties fail at the beginning of their timespan has important implications for the strategic decisions made by party elites.…”

“…) or as organisations (Bolleyer ; Bolleyer et al. ). Yet, little is known about the number of elections until parties disappear from parliament.…”

“…While mergers and splits can be a strategic choice by a party elite (Bolleyer ; Bolleyer et al. , ; Ibenskas ), I do not limit the analysis to a specific reason for party failure. Modelling party survival in this simple and straightforward way allows for a broad understanding of parties’ ability to survive as independent institutions within the lower house legislature.…”

“…Recently flourishing literature devotes attention to parties' ability to maintain their representation in national parliaments (e.g., Beyens et al 2016;Bolleyer & Bytzek 2013Dinas et al 2015; Van de Wardt et al 2017) or as organisations (Bolleyer 2013;Bolleyer et al 2018). Yet, little is known about the number of elections until parties disappear from parliament.…”

“…Parties may disappear from parliament for various reasons, including merging with another party, splitting into two or more parties or simply lacking the votes in the next election to win seats in parliament. While mergers and splits can be a strategic choice by a party elite (Bolleyer 2013;Bolleyer et al 2016Bolleyer et al , 2018Ibenskas 2016), I do not limit the analysis to a specific reason for party failure. Modelling party survival in this simple and straightforward way allows for a broad understanding of parties' ability to survive as independent institutions within the lower house legislature.…”