One hit wonders or long-term players? A survival analysis of local parties in Swedish municipal elections 1991-2018

Across the developed world, local parties - i.e. parties that are not branches of national political organizations and solely run for local elections - have increased in numbers and strength. It is often assumed that these parties solely center on the party entrepreneurs, the party founders, and hence there is a suspicion that they mostly take on the character of ‘flash' parties, that is, are rather short lived. By analyzing the survival rate of local parties in Sweden between 1991 and 2018, we ask for how many terms these parties tend to survive, and in addition, we query if any of their differing characteristics is more associated with longevity than others.