Abstract Both the Green Party of Germany and the New Party of Taiwan are minority political parties. Yet, they both play a critical role. Their party line is explicitly defined. For the Green Party, they appeal to ¡§Ecological Issues¡¨ and gaine their support from new social movements. As for the New Party of Taiwan, they appeal to ¡§Issues of Anti-Independence of Taiwan and Anti-Black Money¡¨ as their national identification. This has its root in the 1990s, when Taiwan was overheated by the issue of declaring independence or unification with Mainland China. In Germany, the Green Party has successfully constrained the development of nuclear industry, and gained strong support from the public in social well-beings. In Taiwan, the New Party also claims to speak for the common people. This posture enabled the New Party to win high popularity in Metropolitan Taipei, and exert high pressure to the Kuomintang. Indeed, the New Party has had stirred up a hurricane in Taiwan. However, this did not last long. The appeals of both parties have been incorporated into the guidelines and agendas of other larger political parties as well. This was deteriorated by the egocentrism of the key leaders of the parties. As such, the parties were divided, and those leaders tended to play one off against another. They both faced the crisis of disintegration and failure as the third choices for the public in political participation. The Green Party has revised its party line and compromised with reality. They formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Party and won the election of the Bundestag in 1998. A coalition government between the red and green was formed in Germany. In the election of the Bundestag in 2002, the same coalition won again. Indeed, the Green Party has performed exceptionally outstanding in the recent election. They won 8.6 % of the votes, the highest in the history of the Green Party. The New Party in Taiwan adopted the slogan of ¡§ Bring Down Lee Teng-Hui and Protect the Republic of China¡¨ as their appeal. However, some of the topics in their agenda have been absorbed by other political parties. They hardly won support by spelling out this slogan for a number of reasons. Lee Teng-Hui completed his term in 2000. Nativisim has gained momentum in Taiwan. The tension between Taiwan and the mainland intensified. The homogenous People First Party was founded. The strife inside the New Party intensified, coupled with the exodus of elites. All these events severely hampered the reputation of the New Party and their efforts in the election. Therefore, they lost in the election of the Legislative Yuan in 2001, with humiliation. Outsiders describe their downfall as a bubble. Nevertheless, the New Party revitalized themselves by appealing to the common people, which enabled them to win 5 seats in the City Council of Taipei in the 2002 election. This success changed the attitude of the others towards the New Party, as they felt that this party is going to rejuvenate. Therefore, the rise and fall of the Green Party of Germany and the New Party of Taiwan and their strategies for development may well be served as cases for the study of political parties that appeal to political agenda.

This thesis is a study of Parties as an outflow of societal changes where the aim has been to find out how parties are affected by societal changes and how they justify to new party formation. This is done by using a theory called Parties as an outflow of societal changes which is a theory developed by Swedish researchers in Political Science. To confirm the theory it is necessary to do an argumentation analysis of one external developed party’s electoral program. In this case the party selected is Feminist Initiative which brings a different view on how the society of Sweden should look like. Selected parts of the argumentative analysis will be examined with the purpose to give a perspective on how Feminist Initiative values the changes in society and how they describe their role as a new party. The main question of this study is; Are new parties an outflow of societal changes? The basic arguments includes that along with societal changes in Western Europe also changes the view of a representative democracy in which political parties play a central role. It is clear that societies have changed in different ways with the rampage of the globalization. Media’s role in the political realm has also increased and influences more in society. In the case of Sweden political parties have raised with different ideals, goals and visions of how Swedish society should look like. The result should confirm the thesis that changes in society contributes to party formation.

Back in 2012, Niklas Bolin offered an innovative perspective on the importance of agency for new party entrance. With his doctoral thesis he concluded that the ownership of at least one non-mainstream position and the possession of certain party resources were two necessary conditions for new parties to reach parliament membership. This investigation aimed to test his findings with the analysis of the only two cases of new party entrance in the Portuguese democracy since the end of the consolidation period: the Left Bloc (BE) in 1999 and PessoasAnimais-Natureza (PAN) in 2015. The thesis concludes that in one hand both parties emphasized “unique” issues in their electoral programs. On the other hand, some party resources proved to have greater importance than others for this case: both parties had low levels of membership, limited leadership and considerable financial funds when compared to similar size parties. Finally, regarding media exposure while BE managed to gain some space within the traditional channels, PAN relied solely on social media. As a result, this study corroborates both the current tendency for a decline in the number and importance of party affiliates and the equalization theory regarding the opportunities of the Internet for small parties as a more equal space for party competition.

The aim of this study is to examine explanations for why Swedish local political parties are formed. This is done by using a statistical method with a focus on first person explanations, whereas previous research either has focused on third person explanations or conducted small scale studies. Several perspectives and explanations are found in the previous literature, around which a total of seven hypotheses are constructed. To test the hypotheses, a survey is constructed and data is collected from a total of 63 founders, representing 44 of the 62 local parties that received mandates in a municipal council for the first time in either 2014 or 2018. Results indicate that difficulty to influence the established parties, disappointment aimed towards the established parties as well as a lack of attention given to topics perceived as important are all significant factors when making the decision to form a party. Contrary to previous research, factors such as anger and a desire for revenge are not found to affect the decision to form a party. Furthermore, a potential explanation for why the diffusion effects that have been documented in previous research exist, namely rational imitation, finds some support in this study. In conclusion, it is argued that the disparity within the previous research and between previous research and this study, along with theoretical shortcomings in some theoretical explanations, shows that the study of why local political parties emerge is in its infancy and that both theoretical explanations and empirical analyses could use further development.

本研究擬以博奕理論為主要研究架構,藉由個案研究分析,希望達成以下之目的:(1)探對台北市議會在三黨不過半的議會政治生態下,各政黨之間合縱連橫之運作情形及其影響,並試圖尋求影響三黨互動關係的因素。(2)了解政黨在議會立法過程中所處的地位、所扮演的角色及所發揮的功能。整個研究範圍則限於第七屆議會第一會期內85年度總預算的審查。全文共分六章,茲概述如下: 第一章緒論:說明研究動機與目的、研究範圍與方法以及研究限制。 第二章理論基礎與文獻探討:介紹博奕理論基本概念,並對相關研究文獻予以探討。 第三章現行台北市議會內的政黨政治:首先介紹市議會內的政黨組織,再進一步了解議會立法過程中的政黨運作,最後論及影響政黨互動關係的因素。 第四章及第五章部份:藉由「敬老津貼」及「教師節敬師金」兩項個案的分析,窺 探台北市議會內三黨合縱連橫的過程。 第六章結論:敘述研究發現並提出評議。