| OCR Text |
Show 2 electoral success of niche parties can have important effects on party systems by upsetting mainstream party relationships and long-standing governing coalitions, and even when not in a coalition, niche parties can potentially influence public policies via bargaining from the sidelines (de Lange 2008, 86; Pellikaan et al. 2007). To an even greater extent, questions of governance and the impact of niche parties in Europe have been especially evident during the ongoing economic crisis in Europe and the string of national elections that have ensued, in the wake of international events like the Fukushima nuclear accident, and more recently with the refugee crisis and challenges facing the Schengen Agreement on free movement. While nearly every European state has niche parties competing in elections, they are not all experiencing or achieving the same levels of electoral success outlined in the previous paragraph. In some countries, these niche political parties have little electoral appeal and little impact on political debates or public policy. Due to the varying fortunes of niche parties across Europe, my research question is: under what conditions do niche parties achieve electoral success by obtaining a percentage of the votes and seats in national (lower house) legislative elections or, more indirectly, influence the attention mainstream parties pay to the niche issues? The existing literature has focused on three explanations for the variation in niche party success: institutions (Carter 2004; Lubbers and Scheepers 2000; Lubbers and Scheepers 2002), socioeconomic conditions (Dalton 2006; Golder 2003; Inglehart 1997), and the strategic choices of mainstream parties (Adams et al. 2006; Meguid 2005; Meguid 2008; Pardos-Pardo 2015). One aspect, largely ignored, is the strategic choices of the niche parties. Niche parties are treated as objects acted upon by mainstream parties, |
