This panel considers the various ways in which European parties have used institutional rules and informal practices to shape the political landscape in their favor. Papers will consider the role of formal political exclusion including the exclusion of women from electoral politics in France; the disfranchisement of workers in the United Kingdom; the adoption of reforms that could end electoral fraud in France; and finally in he power of occupying authorities to affect competitionthrough the inclusion or exclusion of particular political parties from electoral contestation.