THE INFLUENCE OF NEW PARTIES ON OLD PARTIES PLATFORMS - THE CASES OF THE PROGRESS PARTIES AND CONSERVATIVE PARTIES OF DENMARK AND NORWAY

This paper focuses upon a hybrid 'performance hypothesis' positing tha t an established party will change its ideological identity in reactio n to a successful new party only when the established party itself exp eriences poor election results which it can attribute to the new party . That hypothesis is addressed with original, longitudinal data on man ifesto positions of the far-right Norwegian and Danish Progress partie s, their Conservative neighbor-parties and (for control purposes) the Labour parties. Analyses support the authors' conclusion that both new parties have had a significant impact on their respective party syste ms according to the intentions and strategies of their founders.