*Sorry for cross-posting* Dear Colleagues, herewith, we are delighted to share a call for paper for the panel *New Parties in Office: Parliamentary and Governmental Challenges*, which is expected to be held at the next *Annual Conference of the Italian Political Science Association*. The conference will take place on September 14-16 at the University of Genoa (Italy): https://www.sisp.it/en/conference2023. Below (as well as in attachment), you may find the panel abstract. The panel will be chaired by Marco Lisi and Michelangelo Vercesi, of the NOVA University Lisbon. The panel is included in the Conference Section 3 ‘Government, Parliament and Representation’, which is chaired by Elisabetta De Giorgi and Andrea Pedrazzani. For more details, please see at the following link: https://www.sisp.it/convegno2023/?pagename=cms&name=sessiontracks&trackname=governo--parlamento-e-rappresentanza . The *deadline* for submissions is approaching and it is *31 May 2023*. Submissions can be made only through the SISP online system. You do not have to be a SISP member, but you need to create an account to submit your proposal While making your submission, please remember to indicate the panel as the venue where you want to send your abstract and we will be directly notified. For any further information or queries, you can contact us at michelangelo.vercesi@fcsh.unl.pt or marcolisi@fcsh.unl.pt. We look forward to receiving your proposals! Best wishes, Marco & Michelangelo *Panel abstract* In the 21st Century, one of the most recurring topics among scholars of political parties, party behavior, and executive politics in parliamentary democracies has been the decline of mainstream parties. This phenomenon has been examined mostly at the electoral or programmatic level, whereas the institutional arena has been largely understudied. At the same time, new parties have altered traditional patterns of competition, introducing new dynamics in both parliaments and governments. What is even more interesting is the fact that these new parties display very different features in terms of their organizational, ideological and strategic dimensions. Some of them are personal parties, characterized by direct links between leaders and supporters. Populist parties are a different category of new actors that have gained institutional relevance in the recent period. Finally, there are also ‘new’ centrist parties – the most evident case being the French *La République en Marche* led by Macron -, which have replaced traditional actors. This panel aims to account for the causes of new parties’ entry in parliaments and governments, as well as the consequences in contemporary European democracies. Possible research questions are: What is the impact of new parties in terms of descriptive representation? Do MPs from new parties behave in a different way compared to mainstream actors? Under what conditions do new parties enter government? What explains their bargaining power relative to their coalition allies? Looking at new parties as independent – rather than dependent – ‘variables’, further questions can be: what is the effect of new parties’ participation in government in terms of its stability? Do these parties have any effect on the recruitment, composition, and professionalization of executive elites? Why? Are these parties responsive when in government? Is their behavior in the coalition and the behavior of their ministers in the cabinet different relative to their partners and other cabinet personnel? The panel welcomes empirical investigations of particularly interesting single cases as well as genuinely comparative studies. Moreover, scholars are encouraged to submit fine-grained conceptual and theoretical works on the topic, which can improve the state of the art. The panel is meant to be methodologically plural, as long as works are analytical and systematic. -- Dr. Michelangelo Vercesi Researcher in Comparative Politics Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI) NOVA University Lisbon Co-Editor, EJPR Political Data Yearbook https://ipri.unl.pt/index.php/en/hm-researchers/integrated-researchers/details/40/363