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, servein this book as valuable material for conceptual innovation and the investigation into why certain entrepreneurial party types succeed or fail.

Offers conceptual insights into the phenomenon of entrepreneurial parties Combines a fresh and innovative conceptual treatment with rich and accurate empirical evidence Examines the rise of political entrepreneurs from a broad comparative perspective

Autorentext

Vít Hlouek is Professor of European Politics at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. Lubomír Kope ek 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.

Inhalt
Chapter 1 Introduction.- Chapter 2 Political entrepreneurs and their parties: conceptual and typological issues.- Chapter 3 The party as a spin-off from a business empire.- Chapter 4 Two tycoons and their one-man shows.- Chapter 5 Entrepreneurial parties without firms and without members.- Chapter 6 How to build a party organisation without financial capital.- Chapter 7 Collapse or survival: the organisational resilience of entrepreneurial parties.