’New political parties enter a life or death struggle’

Joost van Spanje - When people think of new political parties, they tend to think of successful examples such as Podemos in Spain or the 5-Star Movement in Italy. We often forget that the majority of new parties fail to win a single seat. In the Netherlands even nine out of ten since 1948. Political Scientist Joost van Spanje is researching the role that news media and social media play: how decisive are they to the success of new parties in mature democracies? Together with his team at the University of Amsterdam, Joost is currently finalising his project focusing on legal action against anti-immigration parties in 21 European countries. In addition, he is assembling a team in London to examine the role that the media has played in the rise of new political parties in 19 countries since 1945. We discussed with him the latter project in the run-up to the 2021 elections to the Dutch House of Representatives. Examine the entire iceberg.