Studies of new political parties often attempt to explain their electoral success. Methodological problems linked to the notion of selection bias, however, considerably hamper the results of such studies. This note offers a discussion of these biases, which are due to the fact that new political parties are a `self-selected' sample. An empirical example studying the impact of rules regulating the access to ballots in national elections in 21 western democracies illustrates this problem. Taking into account the formation process when studying the success of new parties, however, allows for a correction. Similar solutions exist for other research designs employed to study the success of new parties.
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