| OCR Text |
Show 155 are trying, at a minimum, to pass the electoral threshold. This also suggests that there is greater motivation and electoral incentives for environmental niche parties to broaden or diversify, at least in part, their party platforms and move away from their niche origins and focus on one "big" issue. Adding in the strategic options of niche parties has contributed to our understanding of niche party success. By joining electoral alliances and governing coalitions, niche parties can hinder their electoral success. Additionally, the "nicheness" of niche party platforms contributes to or detracts from electoral success depending on the niche issue. These are all choices facing niche issues and depending on what they choose, they help shape their own electoral fortunes. On the flipside, if mainstream parties are looking to sideline or contain a niche party, it appears convincing them to join an electoral alliance or governing coalition would work in their favor. So, knowing that niche strategy is a valuable contribution, where to go from here? I have two routes: fill in missing observations and test on other types of niche parties. First, and most ambitiously, I would like to fill in the missing observations, the coding of party platforms, from the MARPOR dataset. The Manifesto Data does not code all years that niche parties have competed, only years in which the MARPOR coders deemed the party as electorally significant. For example, even though the National Front (FN) in France has competed in national elections since 1973 it was not included in the Manifesto Data until 1986 when the change to the electoral system provided an opportunity for the FN to break through. Therefore, I am unable to track all strategic options, as represented by party platforms, employed by the niche parties across all elections, but rather am limited to periods of relative electoral success. While I added |
