SYRI Party Takeovers as Alternative Routes into Politics: Evidence from Slovakia 2024

While existing literature on party formation has largely focused on new start-up parties, splinters, and mergers, the phenomenon of takeovers remains underexplored. We address this gap through a qualitative analysis of three Slovak cases - Sme rodina, Republika, and Demokrati, which illustrate how political entrepreneurs bypass formal registration requirements by appropriating existing parties.

We develop an analytical framework centred on five dimensions: brand, leadership, candidates, legal status, and membership, to systematically capture how takeovers unfold. Our findings show that takeovers represent a new level of unrooted entrepreneurial party politics and deepen the hollowing of political parties. In all cases, parties were reduced to legal shells, subsequently “bought,” rebranded, and relaunched as electoral vehicles.