New Wine in Old Bottles: Party Takeovers as a Pathway to New Political Formations in Slovakia

For more than two decades, party scholars have focused extensively on the study of new political parties. Research has primarily examined the contexts in which these parties emerge, whether as a reaction to a gap in the political market (e.g. Tavits 2008), in response to the behaviour of established parties (e.g. Hug 2003, Harmel and Robertson 1985), or as a broader reflection of shifts in the political landscape (Litton 2013). Additionally, scholarly attention has been devoted to aspects of party novelty (Litton 2013), including processes of rebranding, programmatic transformation, and changes in leadership. Scholars have often treated organizational aspects as peripheral to broader discussion for defining a new party (Barnea and Rahat 2010). However, Haughton and Deegan-Krause’s (2019) work provides a starting point for addressing this gap, as they underline the importance of leadership and organizational shifts in understanding how parties navigate political markets and shedding light on the phenomena of party takeovers as a moment when an external actor enters the party and shifts it towards more leader-centric model. In this paper, we aim to move beyond the approach by demonstrating that party takeovers do not necessarily involve merely the entry of new external actors. Instead, they can also entail the complete acquisition of a party by an external actor, followed by its complete transformation to align with the new leadership's vision. By examining the Slovak political party system, which is widely considered relatively volatile (Ghergina 2015) and characterized by a crisis of established parties alongside the rise of new political actors (Hynčica 2019, Marušiak 2017), we identify four cases of successful party takeovers: Demokrati, ĽSNS, Republika and Sme rodina. Through analyzing these cases, we aim to answer several key questions: Why do politicians opt to take over existing parties instead of founding new ones? Why do party members or leaders agree to hand over their party? How does the process of takeover unfold? Additionally, we seek to examine the broader political context in which these takeovers occur. To address these research questions, we will draw on a diverse set of sources. Legislative documents, particularly the statutes of both predecessor and successor parties, will be analyzed to identify structural transformations. Data from political party registries will be utilized to trace formal changes, including alterations in party names, leadership, and headquarters. Additionally, candidate lists will be examined to assess the continuity or replacement of party members within the new entity. Media reports will complement these sources by providing a nuanced understanding of the political context in which these takeovers occurred. This paper aims to shed light on the phenomenon of party takeovers as a distinctive and understudied pathway to political novelty.