ABSTRACT
According to the Duvergerian theories, the entrance of non-viable parties is a random phenomenon. In sum, entering into competition when non-viable, far from being a random phenomenon, becomes the dominant strategy among political parties in mass elections. In the quantitative analysis of this research, author had focused attention on determining the extent of the phenomenon. To do so, the author had relied on a dependent variable that accounts for the extra supply of parties competing as compared to what the Duvergerian theories predict. The inclusion of a higher number of time points per country would allow the temporal evolution of contamination effects to be addressed, and specifically, the emergence and the hypothetical disappearance of the phenomenon of contamination effects. Finally, a new dimension with regard to the concept of contamination effects may be addressed, namely the need to consider political parties instead of countries in the quantitative analysis.
