The aim of the presented analysis is to identify factors correlated with the proportion of seats obtained by new political parties in party systems of Central and Eastern European countries. The study provides an original approach to success of new parties, offering factors divided into in four groups (political, social, institutional and economic factors). The study results confirmed that a higher proportion of seats obtained by new parties in the investigated area correlated with lower trust in the European Union, lower institutional trust (index based on trust in the parliament, government and political parties), poorer evaluations of the future of the country (illustrated with the prospective voting variable), lower income inequalities in the society (illustrated with the Gini coefficient value), and a higher effective number of parties. No significant relationships were observed in the case of institutional factors (including the electoral system).

Economic crisis together with the overall crisis of liberal democracy have caused social discontent and disappointment with existing mainstream parties, which have been blamed for not being able to cope with emerging problems. At the same time new parties, which have presented themselves as an alternative, have appeared and entered parliaments. Some of them can be regarded as entrepreneurial ones. In the case of Poland this is the Palikot Movement, which managed to overcome the electoral threshold in 2011, and Kukiz’15, which did the same four years later. Both organizations have criticized the mainstream parties (especially limiting competition to PO and PiS) and political elites and have also proposed some alternatives. The aim of the paper is to address the questions of what the “new quality” proposed within the programmes of these entities is and of whether these parties really practise what they have preached, particularly whether they use innovations related to alternative forms of democracy in their own structures and after entering parliament try to put their postulates on the state agenda.