Rise of Entrepreneurial Parties in European Politics

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.

“The book has succeeded in moving us forward in the continuous search for different party types. Its definition, typology and differentiation of specific entrepreneurial parties should be appreciated, not only by political scientists and students of politics, but also by politicians and journalists, interested in the practice of party politics.” (Lukáš Hájek, European Political Science, Vol. 21, 2022)“The book makes important conceptual, analytical and empirical contributions to the study of party politics. … the study provides a comprehensive account of recent developments that informs us about the variation between entrepreneurial parties. The book is a meticulous and extensively documented study that could be useful to both academic audiences and practitioners interested in the formation, persistence and failure of new parties.” (Sergiu Gherghina, Party Politics, Vol. 28 (5), 2022)“This is a highly relevant and pioneering study that should intrigue all academics studying European politics. … Richness of the accounts the book offers is its yet another major strength, arising certainly to no small degree from the brave descriptions of all sorts of behind-closed-doors dealings. Indeed, with how well the book documents the party-building process with respect to its success or failure, one could even remark that it would make an excellent read for political entrepreneurs themselves.” (Filip Fila, Journal of Contemporary European Studies, November 11, 2020)

Vít Hloušek is Professor of European Politics at Masaryk University, Czech Republic. Lubomír Kopeček 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.