Recent electoral success of the Freedom Party in Austria, List Pim Fortuyn in The Netherlands, the People's Party in Denmark and the National Front in France have demonstrated the appeal of parties that challenge the political establishment. This book seeks to explain why these parties have achieved a political breakthrough, but unlike other studies in the area does not concentrate on only one type of party. Instead it attempts to determine preconditions for the success of anti-political establishment parties in general, avoiding any time specific or ideology specific explanations.

Contents:
List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements 1. Introduction 2. Theoretical Background and Methodology 2.1 Why examine Anti-Political Establishment Parties? 2.2 Definitional Problems in the Literature 2.3 Defining the Anti-Political Establishment Party 2.4 How to identify an Anti-Political Establishment Party 2.5 Theoretical Background and Prior Research 2.6 Research Hypotheses and Methodology 3. Anti-Political Establishment Parties in Nineteen Democracies 4. Testing the Hypotheses 4.1 Electoral System Features 4.2 A Tradition of Strong Anti-Political Establishment Parties in the Past 4.3 The Economic Condition of a Country 4.4 Collusion between the Main Establishment Parties 4.5 Party System Features 4.6 Availability of Voters 5. Testing Multivariate Regression Models 6. Conclusion Appendix A Appendix B Bibliography