Parliamentary elites of new European party families: Unsuccessful challenges or chaotic signs of change?

In this work, we try to develop some general hypotheses about the recent emergence and the following transformation/consolidation of parliamentary elites representing the most recent party families of the European scenario: the green, the left-libertarian and the ethno-regionalist ones. The basic rationale of the chapter resides in the idea of investigating the effects of the ‘original features’ of these parties on their parliamentary troops, and the possible adaptation/acquiescence of these elites to the existing parliamentary context. While in the case of the greens the profile of MPs seems to move from the initial character of ‘anti-system challenger’ towards a more pragmatic image, we can argue, on the other hand, that there are some interesting disordered signs of change in the area of the new libertarian-left and in some groups of MPs representing ethno-regional parties. These groups are very different from each other, and somehow differ within themselves: features which derive from some cultural heritage (for instance the high degree of political professionalization of MPs from post-communist parties) are balanced by other aspects typically rooted in new libertarian and populist parties.