Political parties are strange animals. The study of them in fact indicates a paradox. Despite many definitions and a vast and consolidated literature grounded on well-established thinking and contributions of outstanding scholars, there is a lack of knowledge on what political parties relay are today. This weakness in understanding is not simply ontologically related to the ongoing and never-ending story of human research especially in social science, it also depends on the fact that the models that have been proposed are somehow limited in their general impact by different biases. The mass party often referred to as the model for political organisation represents in fact the exception, being mostly, and almost exclusively present in western European countries. Other very interesting and useful intuitions, such as the cartel party or the catch-all party are able to photograph some parties, at some point, in a given context but often they do not grasp the essence of what is happening to the most important collective political actor all over the world. It is not an easy task and probably it is inconceivable to go far from a minimal definition of what a party is in order to cover all the organisations falling into the same category. At the same time, the dramatic changes that have invested society and politics since the late Sixties of the 19th century have shown the need for a change and a continuous adaption of the analytical paradigm to define the political parties. This latter impellent push for frequent adaption to real life is remarkably bigger when we move from the organisational approach to the definition of what the political parties' tasks and functions are. Therefore, we can rely on a good amount of information, literature, and comparative research concerning the organisational aspects and definition of the political party, but we are still searching to catch its fundamental functions, actions, and the reason why it acts in a way or another.

The rise of entrepreneurial political parties in European politics represents a timely publication. The topic is hugely overlooked in the literature, and the book courageously published by Palgrave represents a very important contribution that will become a landmark for those dealing with the argument. The book written by Vít Hloušek, Lubomír Kopeček, and Petra Vodová is the arrival point of many kinds of research that they have been carrying around the theme of political leadership. It confirms the vivacity of the research group based at the Masaryk University that is proposing interesting researches from a few years now.

The book, which is divided into six chapters, covers four main sub-types of the entrepreneurial political parties. From the theoretical point of view, the authors compare European countries from West to Central and Eastern contexts. They indicate that recently there has been the rise of many ‘new entrepreneurial parties, which have been popping up since the late twentieth century to challenge long-term voting patterns and traditional arrangements of party competition’ (p. 9).

Authors recognise that the perspective of politics as indicated by J. A. Schumpeter is useful, but he has considered the internal dynamics of politics as inspired to the economics field. Vice versa, the authors. focus and emphasise ‘the worlds of business and politics interact in novel ways much more often than they did before, and in many democratic countries.’ (p. 9).

The authors dedicate much attention to the relationship between the political entrepreneur and the party, so the key factor is the political party, the tool through which the political entrepreneur can take the field in politics (p. 10). Entrepreneurs determine their parties' existence via their role as founder, as well as in terms of organisation and policy issues. Authors are accurate in emphasizing the differences, theoretical, and empirical, related to the control and the possession of the party. Once this aspect is clarified, the book makes explicit that the political entrepreneurs do not need to come from a business background although political entrepreneurs coming from this sector are a very important group.

Thus, the party can be represented as an economic tool for ‘investments’ both economically and politically. Entrepreneurial political parties can then be understood as political actors – a kind of political party – and at the same time as a political trend being increasingly registered recently in Europe at the least. The authors well underline that they are not focusing on economic and financial bosses aiming to influence politics but keeping a distance from it, but rather to understand when, how, and why economic entrepreneurs decide to get directly involved in politics. The sample of selected cases is very interesting and it covers the most important examples for the geographical area covered in the book: ANO (Andrej Babiš, Czechia), Dawn of Direct Democracy (Tomio Okamura, Czechia), Forza Italia of Silvio Berlusconi, Freedom and Direct Democracy (Tomio Okamura, Czechia), Kukiz’15 (Pawel Kukiz, Poland), Labour Party (Viktor Uspaskich, Lithuania), OL'ANO (Igor Matovič, Slovakia), Palikot's Movement (Janusz Palikot, Poland), Party for Freedom (Geert Wilders, the Netherlands), Progress Party (Carl I. Hagen, Norway), Public Affairs (Vít Bárta, Czechia), and Team Stronach (Frank Stronach, Austria). The authors consider the experience of Donald Trump but they do not mention the impact of Ross Perot in the US politics, despite his electoral defeat in the presidential race. Moreover, I would have probably added the case of Emmanuel Macron's ‘La Republique En Marche’ in France. It seems to be a clear case of ‘new’ party created by and for its leader and founder. Moreover, Macron represented a lucid example of the entrepreneurial politics in Europe given his past experience in the board of financial businesses. In fact, entrepreneurial politics is related to newcomers, the personal leader in addition to the economic and financial roots of the entrepreneurs itself. So, the relationship between the political parties and the entrepreneurial political parties would have probably deserved to discuss some of the recent works who studied the niche of the link between the two sides of this connection. The concept of the presidentialisation of politics (Webb and Poguntke, Reference Webb and Poguntke2005) and of the presidentialisation of political parties (Samuels and Shugart, Reference Samuels and Shugart2010; Passarelli, Reference Passarelli2015) should have been problematised more.

The book deserves great attention from the scientific community as it stands as an important contribution to the study and the understanding of what the political parties are today, of what they do, and especially of how they can be born, and their future developments. Beside some theoretically needed clarifications and further empirical tests, along with wider comparative research design, that can probably be better implemented by adopting a more sophisticated methodological pattern, the book represents a very useful contribution to the debate on both the political parties and the personal leadership. Therefore, scholars, students, and stakeholders interested in politics should refer to it hereafter.