Table of Contents

1. The niche party phenomenon; 2. Position, salience, and ownership: a strategic theory of niche party success; 3. An analysis of niche party fortunes in Western Europe; 4. A theory of strategic choice; 5. Stealing the environmental title: British mainstream party strategies and the containment of the Green Party; 6. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend': French mainstream party strategies and the success of the Front National; 7. An uneven battle of opposing forces: mainstream party strategies and the success of the Scottish National Party; 8. Cross-national comparisons and extensions; 9. Conclusions: broader lessons of competition between unequals.

Promotional Information

This book explores how and why established parties undermine niche parties or use them against other mainstream opponents.

About the Author

Bonnie Meguid is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. Her research on party competition has been published in The American Political Science Review. Her research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Krupp Foundation, and her doctoral dissertation was awarded the Samuel H. Beer Prize for Best Ph.D. Dissertation on British Politics by the British Politics Group.

Reviews

'In this well-written, accessible, and superbly researched book, Meguid offers a new framework for explaining what she calls niche party success and failure. … Meguid's book significantly advances our understanding of the relationship between mainstream and niche parties, niche party success and failure, and party competition between unequals and nonproximal parties.' Journal of Politics

'… the book offers brilliant academic intrigue … good reading for social scientists and their students, [and] also for policy analysts and policy makers …' CEU Political Science Journal

'In this very valuable contribution to comparative state-church studies, Ahmet T. Kuru takes readers on a deep and illuminating dive to examine why three self-consciously 'secular' states - the United States, France, and Turkey - have come to treat religion in the public sphere so differently from one another … Kuru offers a fresh and well-researched perspective on the resulting clashes, and he demonstrates why assertive secularism won out in twentieth century France and Turkey.' Jonathan Laurence, Culture and Society