NICHE PARTIES IN THE LITHUANIAN PARTY SYSTEM

The aim of the article is to discuss the issue of niche parties and apply this approach on the Lithuanian case. The niche parties are analysed in the political science since the 1960s, focusing on small radical parties and also the single-issue parties that grew up in the postmodern West European societies. Nevertheless, during the next decades the single-issue parties were supplemented by other types of niche parties such as business-firm parties, media parties, generation parties, and protest parties. In the first part of our article we present the debate on the niche parties and also proper typology of niche parties. Successively we apply this typology on five Lithuania niche parties that are present in the contemporary Lithuanian party system.