Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology

Hloušek, Vít; Kopeček, Lubomír; Vodová, Petra

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.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2021-04-23

Format: Paperback

ISBN-13: 9783030419189

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-41916-5

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 215