The term political entrepreneur may refer to any of the following: * Someone (usually active in the fields of either

politics Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separ ...

) who founds a new political project, group, or

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

* A businessman who seeks to gain

profit Profit may refer to: Business and law * Profit (accounting), the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market * Profit (economics), normal profit and economic profit * Profit (real property), a nonpossessory inter ...

through subsidies,

protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulation ...

, government contracts, or other such favorable arrangements with government(s) through political influence (also known as a rent-seeker)

Politician

In the field of business,

entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values t ...

involves people taking a

risk In simple terms, risk is the possibility of something bad happening. Risk involves uncertainty about the effects/implications of an activity with respect to something that humans value (such as health, well-being, wealth, property or the environm ...

in order to create new business ventures, to gain advantage over a competitor, and to maximize profits. However, a political entrepreneur gets the government to pass legislation in order to guarantee a monopoly for themselves.

History and cultural context

The

political activism Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range ...

of American business as a class has surged and ebbed at various historical moments. Variations in both business and countervailing political mobilization should be approached as problems of collective interpretation and action. Partisan leaders, not businesses or other policy-seekers themselves, have the strongest incentives to absorb the transaction costs associated with either broad-scale business or countervailing collective action. When partisan entrepreneurs see an opportunity to alter the distribution of power at the national level, they engage in a discursive exercise to remold business or oppositional interests and undertake the mobilization of these interests. An analytical framework for dealing with political entrepreneurship and reform is proposed which is based on some new combinations of

Schumpeterian Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at Ha ...

political economy, an extended version of Tullock's model of democracy as franchise-bidding for natural monopoly and some basic elements of New Institutional Economics. It is shown that problems of insufficient award criteria and incomplete contracts which may arise in economic bidding schemes, also—and even more so—characterize political competition. At the same time, these conditions create leeway for Schumpeterian political entrepreneurship. The same is true for various barriers to entry in politics. These barriers affect a trade-off between political stability and political contestability which will be discussed with special emphasis on incentives and opportunities for political entrepreneurship in the sense of risking long-term investments in basic political reforms.

Businessperson

The term ''Political entrepreneur'' may also be used to contrast a pure "market entrepreneur" with someone that uses the political system to further a commercial venture or their own career. On this definition a political entrepreneur is a business entrepreneur who seeks to gain profit through subsidies,

, government contracts, or other such favorable arrangements with government agents through political influence and lobbying (also referred to as corporate welfare). Ed Younkins (in 2000) wrote: "Political entrepreneurs seek and receive help from the state and, therefore, are not true entrepreneurs." Similarly, Thomas DiLorenzo says, "a ''political entrepreneur'' succeeds primarily by influencing government to subsidize his business or industry, or to enact legislation or regulation that harms his competitors." He says, in contrast, the "''market entrepreneur'' succeeds financially by selling a newer, better, or less expensive product on the free market without any government subsidies, direct or indirect." He gives the example of a mousetrap manufacturer who seeks to gain market share by making a better mousetrap as being a market entrepreneur, and a manufacturer who lobbies Congress to ban the importation of foreign-made mousetraps as a political entrepreneur. (DiLorenzo, Thomas, Chapter 7 of ''How Capitalism Saved America''

In practice, the division between the market entrepreneur and the political entrepreneur can have overlap. Many share characteristics of both types of entrepreneur—political and business—to varying degrees. The term appears to have been coined by Burton W. Folsom Jr. in his book, ''The Myth of the Robber Barons''.

References

External links

* Cohen, Nissim (2012) �
Policy entrepreneurs and the design of public policy: Conceptual framework and the case of the National Health Insurance Law in Israel
�� Journal of Social Research & Policy, 3 (1): 5-26.
Choi Taewook (2004) "Promoting a Northeast Asia Economic Integration Policy", ''Korea Focus'', May-April, 2004, vol 12, no 2.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Entrepreneurs Political activism Political people

Politician

History and cultural context

Businessperson

See also

References

External links