ABSTRACT
The key drivers for the proliferation of new parties are: 1) the context of political and economic crisis in Spain that has engulfed the political class as a whole, in particular the two main political parties, the PSOE and the PP; 2) the dramatic fall in the costs of setting up a party as a result of advances in digital media technologies; and 3) the perceived limitation of 'grassroots politics', direct action and other kinds of direct and indirect lobbying in leveraging change in the politics and agenda of the traditional parties. The political and economic crises have been major factors behind the explosion of new political parties. The main purpose of many of these new parties is to achieve a specific goal, which if accomplished would immediately make the party redundant or obsolete. One defining characteristic of the new parties is their clear vision of the issues that they want resolved.
