Abstract Research on political parties and social movements has long developed independently, separated by the disciplinary boundaries of political science and sociology. We see the recent successes of ‘movement parties’ as a push to bridge the two disciplinary traditions in order to describe this new hybrid party type accurately. To this end, we ask to what extent and under what conditions do we observe movement parties in European party systems, and how can we define the various subtypes? In the introduction to the special issue, we make three contributions. First, we identify existing definitions and empirical examples in the study of movement parties based on a systematic review of the emerging literature. Second, we operationalize Herbert Kitschelt's influential definition of lower levels of programmatic and organizational investment coupled with a higher degree of protest mobilization. Third, we introduce the individual contributions to the special issue and situate them within the relevant theoretical debates. Utilizing a new set of quantitative indicators, we empirically assess how parties identified as movement parties in the existing literature score on programmatic, organizational, and protest dimensions. The analysis underscores the heterogeneity of movement parties, with only a few cases aligning with Kitschelt's comprehensive definition.

Endre Borbáth

Fred Paxton

Acta Politica

Acta Politica is an academic journal focused on political science research, dedicated to publishing high-quality papers that cover a wide range of political science topics and research methodologies.

《Acta Politica》是一本专注于政治学研究的学术期刊，致力于发表高质量的政治学论文，涵盖广泛的政治学主题和研究方法。

Category	Quartile
社会学	3
社会学, 政治学	4

Movement parties in Europe: a comparative assessment

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Journal Info

Category	Quartile
POLITICAL SCIENCE	2