1. Pilet, Jean-Benoit and Cross, William, eds., The Selection of Political Party Leaders in Contemporary Parliamentary Democracies: A Comparative Study (London, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gidengil, Elisabeth and Blais, André, “Are Party Leaders Becoming More Important To Vote Choice in Canada?,” in Michelmann, Hans J., Story, Donald C., and Steeves, Jeffrey S., eds., Political Leadership and Representation in Canada: Essays in Honour of John C. Courtney (Toronto, 2007), 39–59Google Scholar; Hayes, Bernadette C. and McAllister, Ian, “Gender, Patry Leaders, and Election: Outcomes in Australia, Britain, and the United States,” Comparative Political Studies 30, no. 1 (February 1997): 3–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Musella, Fortunato, Political Leaders Beyond Party Politics (Basingstoke, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gherghina, Sergiu, ed., Party Leaders in Eastern Europe: Personality, Behavior and Consequences (Basingstoke, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. Thomas Poguntke, “Party Organizational Linkage: Parties Without Firm Social Roots?,” in Kurt Richard Luther and Ferdinand Muller-Rommel, eds., Political Parties in the New Europe: Political and Analytical Challenges (Oxford, 2002), 43–62; Amanda Bittner, Platform or Personality? The Role of Party Leaders in Elections (Oxford, 2011); Ludger Helms, ed., Comparative Political Leadership (Basingstoke, 2012).

3. Jean Blondel and Jean-Louis Thiébault with Katarzyna Czernicka, Takashi Inoguchi, Ukrist Pathmanand and Fulvio Venturinoeds., Political Leadership, Parties and Citizens: The Personalisation of Leadership (New York, 2010); Reuven Y. Hazan and Gideon Rahat, Democracy within Parties: Candidate Selection Methods and Their Political Consequences (Oxford, 2010).

4. Margit Tavits, “Party Organizational Strength and Party Unity in Post-Communist Europe,” European Political Science Review 4, no. 3 (August 2011): 409–31; Margit Tavits, Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization (Cambridge, Eng. 2013); Sergiu Gherghina, Party Organization and Electoral Volatility in Central and Eastern Europe: Enhancing Voter Loyalty (London, 2014).

5. Robert Harmel, Uk Heo, Alexander Tan, and Kenneth Janda, “Performance, Leadership, Factions and Party Change: An Empirical Analysis,” West European Politics 18, no. 1 (January 1995): 1–33; William Cross and Jean-Benoit Pilet, eds., The Politics of Party Leadership: A Cross-National Perspective (Oxford, 2016).

6. Seán Hanley, “Dynamics of New Party Formation in the Czech Republic 1996–2010: Looking for the Origins of a ‘Political Earthquake,’” East European Politics 28, no. 2 (2012): 119–43; Boris Gurov and Emilia Zankina, “Populism and the Construction of Political Charisma: Post-Transition Politics in Bulgaria,” Problems of Post-Communism 60, no. 1 (January 2013): 3–17; Sarah Engler, “Corruption and Electoral Support for New Political Parties in Central and Eastern Europe,” West European Politics 39, no. 2 (March 2016): 278–304; Alenka Krašovec, “A Hint at Entrepreneurial Parties? The Case of Four New Successful Parties in Slovenia,” Czech Journal of Political Science 24, no. 2 (2017): 158–78; Vlastimil Havlik and Petr Voda, “Cleavages, Protest or Voting for Hope? The Rise of Centrist Populist Parties in the Czech Republic,” Swiss Political Science Review 24, no. 2 (June 2018): 161–86.

7. Lubomír Kopeček, “‘I’m Paying, So I Decide’: Czech ANO as an Extreme Form of a Business-Firm Party,” East European Politics and Societies 30, no. 4 (November 2016): 725–49; Sergiu Gherghina and Sorina Soare, “Electoral Performance beyond Leaders? The Organization of Populist Parties in Postcommunist Europe,” Party Politics 27, no. 1 (July 2019): 56–80.

8. There are two reasons why we do not include the People’s Party Dan Diaconescu (PPDD)—the other newly emerged party that gained parliamentary representation in the last two decades—in the analysis. First, the party emerged before the 2012 elections and did not compete with the three that we compare because it was disintegrated until the 2016 elections. Second, the party resembles a business-firm party, a specific genre that may not be comparable with the others. For details about the PPDD characteristics, see Sergiu Gherghina and Sorina Soare, “From TV to Parliament: The Successful Birth and Progressive Death of a Personal Party the Case of the People’s Party Dan Diaconescu,” Czech Journal of Political Science 24, no. 2 (2017): 201–20.

9. Simon Hug, Altering Party Systems: Strategic Behavior and the Emergence of New Political Parties in Western Europe (Ann Arbor, 2001); Allan Sikk, “How Unstable? Volatility and the Genuinely New Parties in Eastern Europe,” European Journal of Political Research 44, no. 3 (May 2005): 391–412; Shlomit Barnea and Gideon Rahat, “Out with the Old, in with the ‘New’: What Constitutes a New Party?” Party Politics 17, no. 3 (2011): 303–20; Krystyna Litton, “Party Novelty: Conceptualization and Measurement of Party Change,” Party Politics 21, no. 5 (2015): 712–25. The definition that we use here corresponds to what Litton calls the thin conceptualization of novelty.

10. Sergiu Gherghina, “Rewarding the ‘Traitors’? Legislative Defection and Re-Election in Romania,” Party Politics 22, no. 4 (2016): 490–500.

11. Harmel et al., “Performance, Leadership, Factions and Party Change”; Cross and Pilet, The Politics of Party Leadership.

12. Angelo Panebianco, Political Parties: Organization and Power, trans. Marc Silver (Cambridge, Eng., 1988).

13. Robert J. House, William D. Spangler, and James Woycke, “Personality and Charisma in the U.S. Presidency: A Psychological Theory of Leader Effectiveness,” Administrative Science Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1991): 364–96; Fred E. Fiedler, “Cognitive Resources and Leadership Performance,” Applied Psychology 44, no. 1 (1995): 5–28; Stephen Benedict Dyson and Thomas Preston, “Individual Characteristics of Political Leaders and the Use of Analogy in Foreign Policy Decision Making,” Political Psychology 27, no. 2 (2006): 265–88; Gherghina, Party Leaders in Eastern Europe.

14. Clive Bean, “The Electoral Influence of Party Leader Images in Australia and New Zealand,” Comparative Political Studies 26, no. 1 (1993): 111–32; Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb, eds., The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies (Oxford, 2005); Anthony Mughan, Anthony J. Badger and Harris Howell, Media and the Presidentialization of Parliamentary Elections (Basingstoke, 2000); Paul Webb, Thomas Poguntke, and Robin Kolodny, “The Presidentialization of Party Leadership? Evaluating Party Leadership and Party Government in the Democratic World,” in Ludger Helms, ed., Comparative Political Leadership (Basingstoke, 2012), 77–98; Clive Bean and Anthony Mughan, “Leadership Effects in Parliamentary Elections in Australia and Britain,” American Political Science Review 83, no. 4 (1989): 1165–79; Ellis S. Krauss and Benjamin Nyblade, “‘Presidentialization’ in Japan? The Prime Minister, Media and Elections in Japan,” British Journal of Political Science 35, no. 2 (2005): 357–68; Gideon Rahat and Ofer Kenig, From Party Politics to Personalized Politics? Party Change and Political Personalization in Democracies (Oxford, 2018); Marina Costa Lobo, “Parties and Leader Effects: Impact of Leaders in the Vot for Different Types of Parties,” Party Politics 14, no. 3 (May 2008): 281–98; Bittner, Platform or Personality?.

15. Much of the existing literature looks at presidentialization and personalization as a move towards a stronger role of the leader within existing parties. See, for example, Lauri Karvonen, The Personalisation of Politics: A Study of Parliamentary Democracies (Colchester, 2010); Gideon Rahat and Tamir Sheafer, “The Personalization(s) of Politics: Israel, 1949–2003,” Political Communication 24, no. 1 (2007): 65–80. In this article, the argument is not about such a process but more about the characteristics at the point of foundation.

16. Marina Costa Lobo and John Curtice, Personality Politics? The Role of Leader Evaluations in Democratic Elections (Oxford, 2015); Alan Renwick and Jean-Benoit Pilet, Faces on the Ballot: The Personalization of Electoral Systems in Europe (Oxford, 2016).

17. Ian McAllister, “The Personalization of Politics,” in Russell. J. Dalton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior (Oxford, 2007), 571–78.

18. Bram Wauters, Peter Thijssen, Peter van Aelst, and Jean-Benoit Pilet, “Centralized Personalization at the Expense of Decentralized Personalization. The Decline of Preferential Voting in Belgium (2003–2014),” Party Politics 24, no. 5 (September 2018): 511–23.

19. Mughan, Media and the Presidentialization of Parliamentary Elections; Blondel and Thiébault, Political Leadership, Parties and Citizens: The Personalisation of Leadership.

20. Joop J. M. van Holsteyn and Rudy B. Andeweg, “Demoted Leaders and Exiled Candidates: Disentangling Party and Person in the Voter’s Mind,” Electoral Studies 29, no. 4 (2010): 628–35; Gianluca Passarelli, “Parties’ Genetic Features: The Missing Link in the Presidentialization of Parties,” in Gianluca Passarelli, ed., The Presidentialization of Political Parties: Organizations, Institutions and Leaders (Basingstoke, 2015), 1–25.

21. Gherghina, Party Organization and Electoral Volatility.

22. Ian McAllister, “The Personalization of Politics in Australia,” Party Politics 21, no. 3 (May 2015): 337–45.

23. Passarelli, “Parties’ Genetic Features”

24. Poguntke and Webb, The Presidentialization of Politics.

25. Passarelli, “Parties’ Genetic Features”

26. Poguntke and Webb, The Presidentialization of Politics.

27. Meital Balmas, Gideon Rahat, Tamir Shaefer, and Shaul R. Shenhav, “Two Routes to Personalized Politics: Centralized and Decentralized Personalization,” Party Politics 20, no. 1 (January 2014): 37–51.

28. Thomas Preston, The President and His Inner Circle: Leadership Style and the Advisory Process in Foreign Policy Making (Washington, DC, 2001).

29. Susan Scarrow, Beyond Party Members: Changing Approaches to Partisan Mobilization (Oxford, 2015); Emilie van Haute and Anika Gauja, Party Members and Activists (Abingdon, 2015); Gherghina, Party Organization and Electoral Volatility.

30. Robert Harmel and Lars Svåsand, “Party Leadership and Party Institutionalisation: Three Phases of Development,” West European Politics 16, no. 2 (1993): 67–88; Elin H. Allern and Tim Bale, “Political Parties and Interest Groups: Disentangling Complex Relationships,” Party Politics 18, no. 1 (January 2012): 7–25; Nicole Bolleyer and Evelyn Bytzek, “Origins of Party Formation and New Party Success in Advanced Democracies,” European Journal of Political Research 52, no. 6 (October 2013): 773–96.

31. Sikk, “How Unstable?”; Grigore Pop-Eleches, “Throwing Out the Bums: Protest Voting and Anti-Establishment Parties after Communism,” World Politics 62, no. 2 (2010): 221–60; Duncan McDonnell, “Silvio Berlusconi’s Personal Parties: From Forza Italia to the Popolo della Libertà,” Political Studies 61, no, 1 (April 2013): 217–33; Glenn Kefford and Duncan McDonnell, “Ballots and Billions: Clive Palmer’s Personal Party,” Australian Journal of Political Science 51, no. 2 (2016): 183–97.

32. Gherghina and Soare, “From TV to Parliament”; Jonathan Hopkin and Caterina Paolucci, “The Party as Business Firm: Cases From Spain and Italy,” European Journal of Political Research 35, no. 2 (1999): 307–39; Kopeček, “‘I’m Paying, So I Decide.’”

33. Caroline Close and Sergiu Gherghina, “Rethinking Intra-Party Cohesion: Towards a Conceptual and Analytical Framework,” Party Politics 25, no. 5 (2019): 652–63.

34. Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way, “Beyond Patronage: Violent Struggle, Ruling Party Cohesion, and Authoritarian Durability,” Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 4 (2012): 869–89; James Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 3 (2015): 157–70.

35. Loxton, “Authoritarian Successor Parties.”

36. Christopher J. Kam, Party Discipline and Parliamentary Politics (Cambridge, 2009).

37. Luciano Bardi, Enrico Calossi, and Eugenio Pizzimenti, “Which Face Comes First? The Ascendancy of the Party in Public Office,” in Susan E. Scarrow, Paul D. Webb, and Thomas Poguntke, eds., Organizing Political Parties: Representation, Participation, and Power (Oxford, 2017), 62–83.

38. Raul Gomez and Luis Ramiro, “The Limits of Organizational Innovation and Multi-Speed Membership: Podemos and Its New Forms of Party Membership,” Party Politics 25, no. 4 (2019): 534–46.

39. Kopeček, “‘I’m Paying, So I Decide.’”

40. Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania, ALDE Statute, 2017.

41. Website of the Permanent Electoral Authority, at www.aep.ro (accessed August 22, 2019).

42. People’s Movement Party, “PMP Fights for Romania,” PMP Election Manifesto, 2016, at pmponline.ro/alegeri-parlamentare/program-politic-de-campanie (accessed August 13, 2021); People’s Movement Party, PMP Statute, 2013.

43. Both ALDE and PMP, although formed after splits from and mergers of existing parties, fulfil the criteria that qualify them as new parties: they have new labels and no more than half of its top candidates (in legislative elections) originating from a single former party. The latter is an accurate reflection of reality although it may be misleading that much of the party elite in both parties come from single former parties: the PNL in the case of ALDE and the PDL in the case of the PMP.

44. Gabriel Pecheanu, “Rezultatele Finale La Alegerile Locale 2016, În Bucureşti Şi În Ţară (Final Results at the 2016 Local Elections, in Bucharest and in the Country),” Gandul.Info, 2016, at www.gandul.info/stiri/rezultatele-finale-la-alegerile-locale-2016-in-bucuresti-si-in-tara-15467542 (accessed August 13, 2021).

45. Save Romania Union, The Charter of USR Values, 2016.

46. Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania, ALDE Statute.

47. “Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu, Despre o Migraţie a Liberalilor La ALDE (Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu about a Migration of the Liberals to ALDE),” Antena 3, 2017, at www.antena3.ro/politica/calin-popescu-tariceanu-despre-o-migratie-a-liberalilor-la-alde-sunt-dispus-oricand-sa-stau-de-402424.html (accessed August 13, 2021).

48. “Tăriceanu, Invitație Fățișă Pentru Membrii PNL Să Se Înscrie În ALDE (Tăriceanu Invites Directly the PNL Members to Join ALDE),” Digi 24, 2018, at www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/tariceanu-invitatie-fatisa-pentru-membrii-pnl-sa-se-inscrie-in-alde-974468 (accessed August 13, 2021).

49. The Romanian Law of Party Funding allocates considerably more financial resources to parliamentary parties compared to those that do not have seats in the legislature.

50. “Traian Băsescu îşi face partid (Traian Băsescu Forms a New Party),” Ziarul National, 2013, at www.ziarulnational.md/traian-basescu-isi-face-partid-cum-se-descifreaza-pmp/ (accessed August 13, 2021).

51. For all these reasons, we focus on Băsescu as the de facto leader of the party instead of Tomac who was there mainly as a cover.

52. Mădălina Mihalache, “După Udrea, șirul demisiilor din PDL continuă (After Udrea, the Resignations from PDL Continue),” Adevărul.Ro, 2014, at adevarul.ro/news/politica/Sirul-demisiilor-pdl-continua-alti-cinci-parlamentari-1_52eb8755c7b855ff56f51a86/index.html (accessed August 13, 2021).

53. George Arun, “Un partid își caută electoratul (A Party Looks for Its Electorate),” Deutsche Welle, 2014, at www.dw.com/ro/un-partid-își-caută-electoratul/a-17395743-0 (no longer available).

54. People’s Movement Party, “PMP Fights for Romania.”

55. Cosmin Dima, “David și Goliat. Analiza genezei și a succesului electoral al Uniunii Salvați România în alegerile locale și parlamentare din 2016 (David and Goliath: The Analysis of the USR’s Formation and Electoral Success in the 2016 Legislative Elections),” Revista Polis 5, no. 1 (2017): 171–97.

56. Sergiu Gherghina, “One-Shot Party Primaries: The Case of the Romanian Social Democrats,” Politics 33, no. 3 (2013): 185–95.

57. “Surpriză la Congresul PMP. Băsescu, forțat să rămână președinte (Surprise at the PMP Congress. Băsescu Forced to Remain President),” DCNews, 2016, at www.dcnews.ro/surpriza-la-congresul-pmp-basescu-for-at-sa-ramana-pre-edinte-deciziile-majore-amanate_501173.html?print=1 (accessed August 13, 2021).

58. Digi 24, “Nicușor Dan și Clotilde Armand recrutează candidați la parlamentare (Nicusor Dan and Clotilde Armand Recruit Parliamentary Elections Candidates),” 2016, at www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/politica/nicusor-dan-si-clotilde-armand-recruteaza-candidati-la-parlamentare-547686 (accessed August 13, 2021).

59. Ernest Manzac and Iulia Rosu, “Am întrebat membri USR și PLUS de ce le pleacă oamenii (We Asked the USR and ALDE Members Why Their People Leave),” Vice.Com, 2019, at www.vice.com/ro/article/43jyqw/de-ce-pleaca-oameni-de-la-usr-plus (accessed August 13, 2021).

60. Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Romania, ALDE Statute; People’s Movement Party, PMP Statute; Save Romania Union, USR Statute, 2017.

61. Earlier research indicates that membership rolls communicated by party headquarters tend to be exaggerated. In the case of ALDE, PMP and USR, these are the only available sources. There are some numbers in the media, but these also come from the headquarters. While the veracity of these numbers cannot be checked, it is very good for our longitudinal analysis that they come from the same sources. In case there is a bias, this is systematic and is likely to occur at all moments in time, which does not affect the quality of our analysis (i.e. we are interested in trends over time). This would have been much more problematic for a cross-party comparison.

62. Digi24, “Nicușor Dan și Clotilde Armand recrutează candidați la parlamentare.”

63. Iulia Marin, “Nicușor Dan: ‘Nu ne asumăm riscul unei alianţe pentru alegerile parlamentare’ (Nicusor Dan: We Do Not Assume the Risk of an Alliance for Parliamentary Elections),” PressOne, 2016, at pressone.ro/nicusor-dan-nu-ne-asumam-riscul-unei-aliante-pentru-alegerile-parlamentare (accessed August 13, 2021).

64. USR, “Raport despre starea extinderii (Report about the Status of Expansion),” 2019, 2, at www.cristianghinea.ro/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Binder-USR-EXTINDERE-FINAL.pdf (accessed August 13, 2021).

65. USR, “Raport despre starea extinderii (Report about the Status of Expansion).”

66. Gherghina, Party Organization and Electoral Volatility.

67. Rodríguez-Teruel, Juan, Barrio, Astrid, and Barberà, Oscar, “Fast and Furious: Podemos’ Quest for Power in Multi-Level Spain,” South European Society and Politics 21, no. 4 (2016): 561–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

68. Panebianco, Political Parties