This dataset identifies and lists all the new parties emerged in Western Europe since 1945 and provides data about party system innovation, defined as the aggregate level of 'newness' recorded in a party system at a given election. Data are based on parliamentary elections (lower house) of 20 Western European countries since 1945. This dataset covers the entire universe of Western European elections held after World War II under democratic regimes. Data for Greece, Portugal and Spain have been collected after their democratizations in the 1970s.
Last updated by source: 2022-10-03
| Dataset type: | Time-Series |
| Dataset level: | Country |
(Emanuele, 2016)
Cumulative Party System Innovation: sum of the vote share received by non-founder parties in each election. A party is considered as a founder if it has received at least 1% of the national vote share in at least one of the first two post-WWII elections (or, in the case of Greece, Portugal and Spain, the first two democratic elections). Otherwise, the party is counted as a non-founder. The rationale behind this choice is that we look at the first two post-WWII or post-authoritarian elections and make a dichotomous distinction between relevant parties that formed the system (those who received more than 1% of the votes) and parties that emerged later or were only marginal actors (those below 1%) at that time.
More about this variableCumulative Party System Innovation: sum of the vote share received by non-founder parties in each election. A party is considered as a founder if it has received at least 1% of the national vote share in at least one of the first two post-WWII elections (or, in the case of Greece, Portugal and Spain, the first two democratic elections). Otherwise, the party is counted as a non-founder. The rationale behind this choice is that we look at the first two post-WWII or post-authoritarian elections and make a dichotomous distinction between relevant parties that formed the system (those who received more than 1% of the votes) and parties that emerged later or were only marginal actors (those below 1%) at that time. This variable (psi_cpsi2) refers to a second election held on the same year as an election reported on psi_cpsi1.
More about this variableExact date of a second election in a same year
More about this variableParty System Innovation: overall vote share of new parties in a given election. It is calculated at time t with respect to time t-1 (namely, PSInn is calculated with respect to the status quo established at the previous election) and therefore each observation in each country is completely independent from the previous ones. In order to exclude marginal parties, the author has set a threshold at 1% of the national share for a given party to be considered as part of the party system in a given election and has collected data starting from the third post-World War II or democratic election of each country, for a total of 209 new parties (see the complete list of new parties below) in 327 elections. The underlying assumption is that the party system innovation they are interested in is that occurring after the initial institutionalization of the party system. According to PSInn, a party is considered 'new' only in the first election when it enters the party system by receiving at least 1% of the national share. Then, in the subsequent elections, it becomes 'old'.
More about this variableParty System Innovation: overall vote share of new parties in a given election. It is calculated at time t with respect to time t-1 (namely, PSInn is calculated with respect to the status quo established at the previous election) and therefore each observation in each country is completely independent from the previous ones. In order to exclude marginal parties, the author has set a threshold at 1% of the national share for a given party to be considered as part of the party system in a given election and has collected data starting from the third post-World War II or democratic election of each country, for a total of 209 new parties (see the complete list of new parties below) in 327 elections. The underlying assumption is that the party system innovation they are interested in is that occurring after the initial institutionalization of the party system. According to PSInn, a party is considered 'new' only in the first election when it enters the party system by receiving at least 1% of the national share. Then, in the subsequent elections, it becomes 'old'. This variable (psi_psi2) refers to a second election held on the same year as an election reported on psi_psi1.
More about this variable