Exogenous Shocks and Party System Development: What is the Effect on New Party Entry?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Since 2020, the world has been officially battling a COVID-19 pandemic. Even countries with established crisis management plans and years of experience in handling political and economic crises, have been shaken. In the midst of the pandemic’s rampant effects, how politicians handle the crisis is of crucial importance to the preservation, development, and protection of nations in the future. Who is in power determines not only the stability, but the political course of countries. Hence, what happens to the party system as a result of an exogenous shock is a question we need to answer. Importantly, we have little evidence on how the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic affected party competition. Building on the party systems literature, we examine the effect of the pandemic on electoral volatility, party system size, and the number of new party contestants. We hypothesise that, in countries where the incumbent government handles the crisis less effectively, electoral volatility tends to be higher, party system size tends to be larger, and more new parties tend to enter the electoral race. Drawing on evidence from national parliamentary elections held by electoral democracies from March 2020 to April 2022, the empirical results support our hypothesis.