The economic crisis has had severe and negative impacts on the EU over the last decade. This book focuses on a neglected dimension by examining European political entrepreneurship in times of economic crisis with particular emphasis on EU member-states, institutions and policies. The main focus is on the role that the political entrepreneur can play in promoting entrepreneurship and growth. It is argued that the political entrepreneur and political entrepreneurship can positively influence the conditions for entrepreneurial activity and business.

This unique book expertly analyses European political entrepreneurship in relation to the European Union’s approach towards the Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development strategy. It explores the role of European political entrepreneurs in shaping, influencing and realising the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Chapters examine EU actors in the context of numerous development goals to assess how political entrepreneurship challenges traditional EU institutions and promotes visionary activity.

How challenger parties, acting as political entrepreneurs, are changing European democracies Challenger parties are on the rise in Europe, exemplified by the likes of Podemos in Spain, the National Rally in France, the Alternative for Germany, or the Brexit Party in Great Britain. Like disruptive entrepreneurs, these parties offer new policies and defy the dominance of established party brands. In the face of these challenges and a more volatile electorate, mainstream parties are losing their grip on power. In this book, Catherine De Vries and Sara Hobolt explore why some challenger parties are so successful and what mainstream parties can do to confront these political entrepreneurs. Drawing analogies with how firms compete, De Vries and Hobolt demonstrate that political change is as much about the ability of challenger parties to innovate as it is about the inability of dominant parties to respond. Challenger parties employ two types of innovation to break established party dominance: they mobilize new issues, such as immigration, the environment, and Euroscepticism, and they employ antiestablishment rhetoric to undermine mainstream party appeal. Unencumbered by government experience, challenger parties adapt more quickly to shifting voter tastes and harness voter disenchantment. Delving into strategies of dominance versus innovation, the authors explain why European party systems have remained stable for decades, but also why they are now increasingly under strain. As challenger parties continue to seek to disrupt the existing order, Political Entrepreneurs shows that their ascendency fundamentally alters government stability and democratic politics.

This study explores the Europe 2020 strategy and the role of European political entrepreneurship in debating, shaping and implementing this strategy within the EU. The book sets out to explore the content, conditions and consequences of Europe 2020 by analysing the plan for a future prosperous EU economy. The main focus is on European political entrepreneurship and how the strategy has been debated and decided on, and then implemented from a governance perspective with multiple European actors.

Dynamics of entrepreneurship have attracted growing attention from scholars of political science, policy studies, public administration and planning, as well as more recently, from the realms of international relations and foreign policy analysis. Under the banner of political entrepreneurship, this volume considers and maps out conceptual approaches to the study of entrepreneurship drawn from these fields, discusses synergies, envisages new analytical tools and offers contemporary empirical case studies, illustrating the diverse political contexts in which entrepreneurship takes place in the polis. Drawing upon an international cast of senior academics and cutting edge young researchers, the volume takes a closer look at key aspects of political entrepreneurship, such as, defining political entrepreneurs, how it relates to change, decision-making and strategies, organizational arrangements, institutional rules, varying contexts and future research agendas. By highlighting the political aspects of entrepreneurship, the volume presents new exciting opportunities for understanding entrepreneurial activities at regional, national and international levels. The volume will be of particular relevance to scholars and students of political science, policy studies, public administration, planning, international relations and business studies as well as practitioners interested in the nexus and utility of entrepreneurship in the modern-day political world.

The invocation of ‘the market’ has been omnipresent in media discussions of ‘crisis Europe’. On the one hand, ‘the market’ is presented as that to which EU member states must collectively respond. It is the very purpose of a post-national government and that which dictates individual and collective identities. The expansion of market is that which guarantees and constitutes peace in Europe. On the other hand, ‘the market’ is that which government must seek to tame. It is the servant of government and ought not be permitted to undermine collective identities and solidarities associated with the juridical imaginary of social contract and sovereign nation-state. It is, from this perspective, the expansion of the social institutions of nation-state into the post-national arena that will constitute a lasting peace in Europe. Cosmopolitan Government in Europe uses a Foucauldian lens to consider the ethics of the scholarly and institutional discourses associated with these apparently divergent market and legal cosmopolitan visions of Europe. It reflects on attempts to reconcile or move beyond these discourses, particularly through the invocation of more pluralist modes of governance, but claims that such moves have been largely unsuccessful in both practice and theory. It argues that the very ambiguity in the relationship between the ideal subjects that these market and legal visions promote – respectively, post-national ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘citizen’ – is that which permits a space for resistance and politics. Thus, the book argues for a pragmatic politics which is cognizant of the violent potential inherent in any cosmopolitan attempt to govern Europe, while recognising the contemporary dangers associated with the dominance of a market cosmopolitan Europe. This work is an important and timely intervention in contemporary debates about democratic Europe and its shortcomings and will be of great interest to scholars of international political theory, European studies and international political economy.

Many citizens, politicians, and political activists voice concern about the political influence of business in the European Union. But do business interests really pull the strings in Brussels? Contrary to expectations, this book shows that business interests are no more influential than other interests in shaping contemporary EU policies. Andreas Dür, David Marshall, and Patrick Bernhagen present an original argument that stresses the role of public actors in facilitating or impeding interest groups’ lobbying success. Novel data on a large number of legislative proposals on the EU’s agenda and three case studies present strong support for this argument. The Political Influence of Business in the European Union offers new insights into how lobbying success depends on the demand and supply of information, as well as new ideas on how to measure lobbying success. The book advances a fresh perspective on the question of business power and shows why business interests often lose in the policy struggle.