2 - Explaining Mass Support for New Parties

Summary

This chapter first develops a theoretical framework on the behavioral dynamics behind voters’ responses to different mobilization strategies and their different effects on voter preferences and party identification. It then goes on to explore why these different strategies are available to new parties in the first place. It develops a theoretical model that focuses on the period before a new party contests its first major election to show how the intra-elite dynamics during these founding moments shape early on which mobilization strategies the party adopts.