'Drawing on examples from across the European continent, the authors chart the rise, fall and occasional endurance of entrepreneurial parties, highlighting their internal structures, sources of finance and pitches to the electorate. This is a pioneering study furnished with fascinating insights and detailed analysis from which scholars and students of political parties will learn a lot.'

-Tim Haughton, University of Birmingham, UK

'This is a pioneering study which brings a comparative typology to bear on an important and under-explored set of parties hitherto mainly researched as individual case studies. It is also especially to be commended for bringing together parties from both Western and Eastern Europe in a single coherent analytical framework, and for unravelling the difficult distinction between parties founded by businesses and businesspeople and a broader set of top-down start-up parties created with a looser "entrepreneurial" rationale. The book will be essential reading for anyone wanting to get to grips with some of the more recent shifts is landscape of party politics in contemporary Europe and their consequences for democratic politics.'

-Seán Hanley, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL, UK

Political parties run by entrepreneurs as a means to their own end are a recent phenomenon found in many countries, and their electoral influence has never been greater. This book offers a thorough comparative analysis of such parties in Western and East-Central Europe. The book clearly separates these party enterprises from other, more traditional, political platforms as it contributes to our understanding of the potential of entrepreneurial parties. The authors offer a unique typology based on two characteristics: whether the party receives private financial, media or other investment; and the nature of its membership and territorial structure. Famous examples of entrepreneurial parties, alongside their lesser-known counterparts, serve in this book as valuable material for conceptual innovation and the investigation into why certain entrepreneurial party types succeed or fail.

Vít HlouSek is Professor of European Politics at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

Lubomír Kopecek is Professor of Political Science at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

Petra Vodová is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic.

Autorentext

Vít HlouSek is Professor of European Politics at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

Lubomír Kopecek is Professor of Political Science at Masaryk University, Czech Republic.

Petra Vodová is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic.

Klappentext

Political parties run by entrepreneurs as a means to their own end are a recent phenomenon found in many countries, and their electoral influence has never been greater. This book offers a thorough comparative analysis of such 'business-firm' and sometimes oddly memberless parties in Western and East-Central Europe, assessing the considerable corpus of literature on the growing band of political entrepreneurs. The book clearly separates such party enterprises from other, more traditional, political platforms as it contributes to our understanding of the potential of entrepreneurial parties. The authors offer a unique typology based on two characteristics: whether the party receives private financial, media or other investment; and the nature of its membership and territorial structure. Famous examples of entrepreneurial parties, including Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Geert Wilders's Party for Freedom, alongside their lesser-known counterparts, serve in this book as valuable material for conceptual innovation and the investigation into why certain entrepreneurial party types succeed or fail.

Zusammenfassung
Political parties run by entrepreneurs as a means to their own end are a recent phenomenon found in many countries, and their electoral influence has never been greater. This book offers a thorough comparative analysis of such 'business-firm' and sometimes oddly memberless parties in Western and East-Central Europe, assessing the considerable corpus of literature on the growing band of political entrepreneurs. The book clearly separates such party enterprises from other, more traditional, political platforms as it contributes to our understanding of the potential of entrepreneurial parties. The authors offer a unique typology based on two characteristics: whether the party receives private financial, media or other investment; and the nature of its membership and territorial structure. Famous examples of entrepreneurial parties, including Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and Geert Wilders's Party for Freedom, alongside their lesser-known counterparts, serve in this book as valuable material for conceptual innovation and the investigation into why certain entrepreneurial party types succeed or fail.

Inhalt

Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Political entrepreneurs and their parties: conceptual and typological issuesTypes of parties in the context of historical and social trendsConceptual differences, definition and concept of entrepreneurial partiesA typology of entrepreneurial partiesThe institutionalisation of entrepreneurial partiesResearch sources and instruments Chapter 3 The party as a spin-off from a business empireThe (in)famous pioneer: Berlusconi's Forza Italia 'Down with the dinosaurs!' or too private Public Affairs in CzechiaManage everything as a firm: Andrej BabiS's ANO in CzechiaOn the wrong side of Lithuanian law: Viktor Uspaskich and his Labour PartyPalikot's Movement: a one-off sensation involving a Polish political provocateur Similarities and differences Chapter 4 Two tycoons and their one-man showsAustria's Team Stronach: politics as a failed financial investmentThe Slovak performer Igor Matovic and his Ordinary People Similarities and differences Chapter 5 Entrepreneurial parties without firms and without membersHow to build a successful project: Geert Wilders' Party for FreedomA closed party failed project: Tomio Okamura's Dawn of Direct Democracy Similarities and differences Chapter 6 How to build a party organisation without financial capitalThe Norwegian Progress Party: From a free-wheeling, indignant dog-kennel owner to a centralist leader Pawel Kukiz: a Polish punk-rock star's campaign against political parties Tomio Okamura's struggle on behalf of the Czech nation against immigrant 'parasites'Similarities and differences Chapter 7 Collapse or survival: the organisational resilience of entrepreneurial partiesRisks posed by political entrepreneurship to democratic politics