CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2019
| Author | Járdányi, Benedek |
|---|---|
| Title | Getting a Slice from the Cake - New Parties in the Hungarian Parliament |
| Summary | The aim of this thesis is to understand how new parties can manage to get inside parliament. More precisely, the idea is to outline certain characteristics that could be decisive in deciding the faith of a 21th century new party. Based on general theories of parties, party systems and social movements the thesis argues that important factors can be put into two categories: external (factors that act as a shaping force from the outside of the party) and internal (factors that affect the future of the party from the inside). The thesis examines these factors empirically using the case of Hungary since the country went through an interesting change: a once stable system crumbled, giving life to a different party system. The thesis evaluates the general factors affecting the prospects of the new parties by looking at two successful parties that entered Hungarian parliament contributing to the parliamentary system change – LMP and Jobbik. The review of these parties also allows for a refinement of the list of potentially relevant theory-based factors since it evaluates these against empirical reality. Next, using this refined list of factors affecting the prospects of new parties, the thesis evaluates a completely newborn party – Momentum. The thesis finds that the prospects of entering parliament depend largely on ownership of an issue that can help the party generalize its policies to a wider range; the position of the party on the left-right scale for the average voter; furthermore a “building phase” that yields local organizations to get in touch with the voters; and one of the crucial aspects is the structure of the party: having a centralized, hierarchical entity with a strong leader makes a difference. |
| Supervisor | Sata, Robert |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2019/jardanyi_benedek.pdf |
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