This special issue proposal comprises five comparative articles following a common approach. By bringing parties back into parliamentary studies, this comparative work aims to respond to current debates regarding partisan developments by unfolding the challenges that new parties (Mair 2011; Bardi 2014) brought to parliament, their strategy and legislative behaviour and at the same time reflect on the theoretical implications of these developments. We intend to answer, in particular, two interrelated sets of questions: one has to do with the party behaviour (within parliament); the other one is related to the development of parliament as a (living) institution.
