Why do some parties live fast and die young, but other endure? And why are some party systems more stable than others? Based on a blend of data derived from both qualitative and quantitative sources, The New Party Challenge develops new tools for mapping and measuring party systems, and develops conceptual frameworks to analyse the dynamics of party politics, particularly the birth and death of parties. In addition to highlighting the importance of agency and choice in explaining the fate of parties, the book highlights the salience of the clean versus corrupt dimension of politics, charts the flow of voters in the new party subsystem, and emphasizes the dimension of time and its role in shaping developments. The New Party Challenge not only provides the first systematic book length study of political parties across Central Europe in the three decades since the 1989 revolutions, charting and explaining the patterns of politics in that region, it also highlights that similar processes are at play on a far wider geographical canvas. The book concludes by reflecting on what the dynamics of party politics, especially the emergence of so many new parties, means for the health and quality of democracy, and what could and should be done. Comparative Politics is a series for researchers, teachers, and students of political science that deals with contemporary government and politics. Global in scope, books in the series are characterised by a stress on comparative analysis and strong methodological rigour. The series is published in association with the European Consortium for Political Research. For more information visit: www.ecprnet.eu. The series is edited by Susan Scarrow, Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Houston, and Jonathan Slapin, Professor of Political Institutions and European Politics, Department of Political Science, University of Zurich.