ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by offering several theoretical arguments about how and why the nature of party regulation will influence the formation and survival of small parties. It reviews the legal constraints within which parties exist and provides a detailed overview of the regulation of political parties within the several main legal texts. The chapter offers a brief discussion on the process of party competition in Bulgaria in the 1991–2014 period and focuses on providing a general picture of the electoral competition environment. It examines the fate of small political parties and studies their development over time. The chapter also provides with several suggestions on directions of future research interested in the nexus between political competition and party regulation. Public law has come to play an increasingly major role in the development of political parties in contemporary democracies as parties are increasingly subject to regulation.
