1. Jakub Charvát Metropolitan University Prague
XXII. Annual Conference of Central European Political Science Association
“Integration vs. Disintegration? CEE countries towards European Union and its challenges”
Wroclaw, September 2017
Cartelization of Party Politics and the Rise of Entrepreneurial Parties: a Case Study of Czech Party Politics
Jakub Charvát
Metropolitan University Prague

2. Party System Change in the Czech Republic
Czech party system said to be one of the most stable party systems among CEE countries until 2010 (fragile stability according to Deegan-Krause and Haughton 2010) X
the 2010 critical elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic (Charvát and Just 2016)  significant change of Czech party politics
erosion of electoral support for established parties in the 2010 and 2013 elections
moreover, it enabled the entry of several new political parties to the Chamber of Deputies
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

3. Party System Change in the Czech Republic: volatility
high levels of extra-system volatility indicate a growing electoral support for parties contesting for the first time
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

4. Czech Party System Change: newcoming parliamentary parties
Seán Hanley:
new political parties as “a persistent, if marginal, feature of the Czech party system for many years” (2012, p. 120) until 2010 – see the table on the right X
since the 2010 elections, two newcoming parties to the Chamber of Deputies in each elections 
3 of them (out of 4) being business-firm/ entrepreneurial parties (Public Affairs, ANO 2011 and more-or-less the Dawn of Direct Democracy of Tomio Okamura)
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

5. Research design Objectives:
overarching goal of the research project is to analyze the process of partisanship and party system changes in the Czech Republic since the 2010 elections to the Chamber of Deputies
this paper seeks to explain the advent of business-firm/entrepreneurial parties (as one of the most recent phenomenon of Czech party politics)
Theoretical background:
the cartel party argument (see e.g. Katz and Mair 1995; 2009)
Main argument:
the rise of entrepreneurial/business-firm parties in the Czech Republic was caused, inter alia, by cartelization of Czech party politics
(… the research is still in progress …)
Acknowledgment
This paper was made possible due to the financial support of the Metropolitan University Prague under the framework of Institutional support for the development of scientific organization, research project no “Political sciences, culture, media, language”.
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

6. Cartelization as a source of freezing of Czech party politics
political parties in the Czech Republic have been heavily approaching the cartel party model since 1990s
public funding has become a key source of income of political parties (most of their income consists of state subsidies) 
the established parties have sought to adopt strong clientelistic institutions, incl. the legislation on state financing of political parties favouring parliamentary parties and disadvantageous to non-parliamentary parties 
current system of state subventions in the Czech Republic brings an advantage to parties that get the financial support from state over parties that have not received it  most of the publicly funded parties have been the established parties as financially supported parties can use this money for continuous campaigning
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

7. Cartelization as a source of the rise of entrepreneurial parties
the public finance model suppressing new party emergence and (electoral) success  this encourages new political parties to seek substantial amounts of party revenue from other (i.e. non-state) financial sources, esp. from private business
X but!
private funding very much “concentrated on ʿbuyingʾ policies and/or particularistic goods” (Birnir 2005, 918) 
“the prospect of incumbency is an attractive if not crucial factor for private financing” (van Biezen 2003, 194) 
many new contenders limited access to private sources as business will rather support established parties due to their access to and influence in the decision-making process
chance of electoral success having a project directly connected with a wealthy individual from business
with enough money to invest in his own political project; e.g. Andrej Babiš invested CZK 30M (more than 1M €) in his party in 2012 
with commercial know-how to implement an effective strategy to gain support (e.g. to present himself as an anti-establishment outsider who offers a new, i.e. better, way of doing politics)
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

8. Conclusion
the public finance model has created favourable conditions for the emergence of entrepreneurial parties in the Czech Republic
entrepreneurial parties have the access to private financial capital as political entrepreneurs are the most important donors for (their own) parties - at least in the very beginning of its existence
on contrary, resource-poor political entrepreneurs are facing a difficult task with an uncertain outcome of building a new political party from the grassroots, while this long and slow strategy yielded the political entrepreneurs only few dividends (c.f. Hanley 2012, 125)
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

9. Conclusion
such a finding complements the earlier Katz and Mair´s restatement of the cartel party model thesis (see Katz and Mair 2009) that the existence of such a cartel may encourage the emergence of new challengers from outside the political arena and with the electoral appeal to reform the current political establishment, the anti- establishment reform parties as it is called by Seán Hanley and Allan Sikk (2016)
Katz and Mair (2009: 759):
“cartelization has clearly contributed to the rise of populist anti- party-system parties that appeal directly to public perceptions that the mainstream parties are indifferent to the desires of ordinary citizens. Such parties have grown substantially in both prominence and support in the last decade, and serve to underline the dangers to cartel parties of excessive, or excessively overt, cartelization”
Jakub Charvát, Metropolitan University Prague

10. Thanks for your patience! email: jakub.charvat@mup.cz
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