Masaryk University Faculty of Social Studies Department of Political Science

MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Celebritization in politics - The businessmen who turned to politics Bachelor Thesis Camilla Kelényová

Supervisor. Mgr. Miloš Gregor, PhD Student ID: 450378 Student Program: Political Science Matriculation Year: 2015/2016 . . Brno, 2018 Declaration of authorship work

I declare that I have developed a bachelor thesis on Celebritization in politics - The businessmen who turned to politics independently and I have only used the resources listed in the literature.

In Brno 30.11.2018 Signature ……………….

I would like to thank to my bachelor thesis supervisor Mgr. Miloš Gregor, PhD, for the great support, advices and an idea to write my work in English. It made the whole process much easier for me.

Subsequently I would like to thank my parents, friends and boyfriend, who were always there for me and without whom I would never be the person, that I have become. I am forever grateful to you.

Annotation

The bachelor thesis focuses on the businessmen who succeeded in politics in context of the celebritization phenomenon. The research is in particular based on the case studies of: Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, the Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Slovak National Council deputy Boris Kollár, the president of Ukraine Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko and the president of the United States Donald John Trump. The core objective of our work is to find the similar features of the businessmen who turned to politics, based on the comparison of chosen indicators: motivation, policy, electorate and media, mainly in the last elections in which they succeeded.

Keywords

Celebritization, businessmen, celebrity politicians, Andrej Babiš, Silvio Bersluconi, Boris Kollár, Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko, Donald John Trump, elections, media, policy, electorate, comparison

Anotácia

Bakalárska práca sa zaoberá biznismenmi, ktorí sa rozhodli vstúpiť do politiky a uspeli, v kontexte fenoménu celebritizácie v politike. Výskum sa primárne zakladá na prípadovej štúdii piatich biznismenov: Andrej Babiš premiér Českej republiky, Silvio Berlusconi bývalý premiér Talianska, Boris Kollár poslanec Národnej Rady Slovenskej republiky, Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko prezident Ukrajiny a americký prezident Donald John Trump. Hlavnou podstatou našej práce je zistiť podobné znaky týchto úspešných biznismenov v politike, a to komparáciou vybraných indikátorov : motivácia, politika, elektorát a médiá, a to primárne v posledných voľbách, v ktorých daní biznismeni uspeli.

Kľúčové slová

Celebritizácia, biznismeni, celebritný politici, Andrej Babiš, Silvio Bersluconi, Boris Kollár, Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko, Donald John Trump, voľby, médiá, politika, elektorát, komparácia

Table of Content

1. Introduction………………………………………….………………....…………...…...... 6 2. Theoretical Part…………………………………….…………………....………………....7 2.1. Celebritization……………………………….…………………….…...……………...... 7 2.2. Past and Present of the Phenomenon…………………………….……...…….……....…8 2.3. Celebritization Typology...………………………………………………………………9 2.4. Policy………………………………...…………………………….…...…….…….…..10 2.5. Electorate……………………………...…………………………….…...…….….……10 2.6. Media……………………………………………...…………………………….……...11 3. Methodology Part………………………....……………………………………….……...12 3.1. Research Questions…………………………………………………………………….12 3.2. Indicators……………………………………………………………….…....…………13 3.3. Research Design………………………………………………………………………..14 4. Analytical Part………....……………………………...…………………….....…….……15 4.1. Andrej Babiš………………………………………………………………....………..16 4.1.1. Biography and situational context in the Czech Republic……………....……….16 4.1.2. Electoral success……………………………………………………….………..17 4.2. Silvio Berlusconi…………………………………………………………….………..18 4.2.1. Biography and situational context in Italy……………………………………….18 4.2.2. Electoral success………………………………………………………………....20 4.3. Boris Kollár…………………………………………………………………………...20 4.3.1. Biography and situational context in the Slovak republic……………………….21 4.3.2. Electoral success…………………………………………………………………22 4.4. Petro O. Poroshenko…………………………………………………………………..22 4.4.1. Biography and situational context in Ukraine…………………………………...23 4.4.2. Electoral success…………………………………………………………………24 4.5. Donald J. Trump………………………………………………………………………25 4.5.1. Biography and situational context in the USA…………………………………...25 4.5.2. Electoral success…………………………………………………………………26 5. Comparison……………………………………………………………………………….27 5.1. Motivation (Why do the businessmen enter the politics?)……………………………..27 5.2. Policy (What are their policies oriented at?)…………………………………………...29 5.3. Electorate (Who voted for them the most?)……………………………………………32 5.4. Use of media (What is their relationship with the media?)…………………………….34 6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………..37 7. Sources……………………………………………………………………………………39 7.1. Literature……………………………………………………………………………….39 7.2. Websites………………………………………………………………………………..42 7.3. Social Media……………………………………………………………………………47

1. Introduction

The bachelor thesis focuses on the celebritization phenomenon, in terms of businessmen, who decided to turn to politics and succeeded.

The work, in order to provide more objective research conditions, is based on the case study of five businessman politicians. We will be focusing on the Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, the Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Slovak National Council deputy Boris Kollár, the president of Ukraine Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko and the president of the United States Donald John Trump. They were chosen because all of them were primarily wealthy businessmen and only then they have turned to politics and succeeded. Moreover, all of them come from different countries, which brings more diversity into our research.

Firstly, the work begins with the theoretical part. In this section we provide you with some general information regarding the term celebritization in politics. Right after, we will briefly discuss, what does it take to be a successful celebrity politician alongside with the evolution of the phenomenon throughout the years. Additionally, we will describe the meaning of the crucial terms and indicators resulting from the Wheeler’s definition (Shane and Semler 2014:191): policy, electorate and media, which will be worked with in the comparison part. These indicators will to a large extent contribute to answering our research questions, which is the main goal of our bachelor thesis.

These questions alongside with the description of the indicators and the research design are explained in detail in the methodology part. To answer the research questions regarding the common signs of the businessmen in politics, we have conducted a research that consists of the analysis of five case studies, followed by the comparison based on the selected indicators.

Thirdly, the analytical part presents to us the contextual information about each of the five businessmen. This section also discusses their biography that involves the information about their business backgrounds, the analysis of the situational context in their countries in the times of the elections, alongside with the information about their electoral results. With the use of the collected information we can better understand the challenges, that the celebrity businessmen politicians were facing before the elections as well as the way the voters responded to them.

Lastly, the most essential section in our research is the comparison. The purpose of this section is to compare the chosen indicators of each businessmen and thus help us to get the

6 answers to our research questions the indicators are mainly based on the Wheeler’s definition of the successful celebrity businessman and in the end of the research they will provide us with some evidence and broader understanding of this phenomenon and its common signs. Nevertheless, we are fully aware of the fact that the extend of this work is limited yet we stand by the opinion that this work could serve in the suture as a basis for the further extended research of this topic.

2. Theoretical Part

The bachelor thesis deals with the celebritization phenomenon in context of the businessman celebrity politicians, thus it is important to understand, what is the concept of celebritization about, what it takes to become a successful celebrity politician according to Wheeler, how has the phenomenon changed throughout the years, as well as get to know its brief typology. Based on the Wheeler’s definition, we have generated the majority of the indicators: policy, electorate and media, which are going to be defined in this theoretical chapter and will help us to answer the research questions in the long run.

2.1. Celebritization

There are many definitions specifying what the celebritization in context of politics is. Ekman and Widholm define celebritization in politics as a process, during which people, who are involved in the political field are assigned to particular celebrity frames, expressing their own professional and private identities via social networks (Ekman and Widholm 2014:518).

Wheeler (2014), further defines celebrity politics as a set of techniques, rooted in the production of fame, that officeholders and notable citizens might employ for the purposes of aggregating and representing public opinion related to electoral democracy, policy advocacy, and international diplomacy. At the same time, Wheeler points out the importance of the presence of the political skills. He notes that there must be more to a person to become a celebrity politician than just having the celebrity appeal. “They still need a minimum of policy skills and political discipline to succeed. For example, (…)Arnold Schwarzenegger’s image as the 'governor' could not compensate for his inability to govern California”(Shane and Semmler 2014:192).

Additionally, Wheeler would describe a successful celebrity politician as a person: “(…) who can draw a crowd, create a political narrative consistent with their political agenda, and speak through popular culture to communicate a narrative-based agenda” (Shane and Semler 2014:191). Having said that, it is vital for us to understand that there is more to political success than just being a charismatic person. Overall politicians must choose the right policy based on the current topics in the country, while using the right communication media, in order to build devoted and supportive electorate.

2.2. Past and Present of the Phenomenon

For some, it would be reasonable to assume that celebritization is newly trending phenomenon in the 21st century, which goes hand in hand with the new age of Internet and social media. However according to Drake and Higgins (2006:87) the beginning of the celebritization might be dated back to the 1940s, when the well-known sociologist Leo Lowenthal pointed out the fact, that there had been a great progress in media coverage that turned stars of production and politicians into celebrities. One decade later, in 1956, C. Wright Mills comments the alteration of the social hierarchy scheme, where the political elite started to share their highest social status rank with the conventional celebrities (Drake and Higgins, 2006:87).

According to John Street, the celebritization has affected many aspects of public life, and the political communication must be one of the aspects that has been changed the most. The technology progress in combination with the celebritization formed the new styles of political communication. According to Street (2003:87), politicians mostly act like stars or artists. He further notes that: “Politicians become stars, politics becomes a series of spectacles and the citizens become spectators” (Street 2004:441).

In contrast to the past, at the present time, the public audience consumes and watches the celebrity politicians online, via social media. These days politicians are the content creators, who communicate directly with their audience and voluntarily expose their professional and private lives on social networks (Ekman and Widholm 2014:518). Tim Markham and Nick Couldry believe, that the new way of communication, the celebrities’ communication, might as well have some beneficial effects on the public’s engagement in the political field. For instance, people who are not interested in the politics might become more familiar with the

political agenda through the celebrities they follow on social media. On the other hand, Lloyd points out the argument used by the opponents of the political celebritization, that claims that there exists a correlation between the decreased percentage of the accurate information about politics published by media and the political celebritization. The celebritization opponents support their thesis with the fact that the broadcasts and articles concentrate more often on gossiping about the personal lives of the politicians rather than on the political agenda (Lloyd 2005:369).

Subsequently celebritiziation alongside with the social media over exposition, brought up back to the table, some old-new challenges including the ‘paradox of democratic leader’. Kane and Patapan (2012) discussed that: “Political leaders have always been confronted by an unenviable paradox: how to appear above us so we trust them to govern, while also appearing ‘like us’ so they can claim to represent us and to be authentic citizens themselves” (Wood 2016:1).In other words, the paradox involves the fact, that the public becomes more interested in the private life of the celebrity politician thus “politics is increasingly celebritised” (Ekman and Wildholm 2014:518).

2.3. Celebritization typology

Throughout the years, many scholars have created their own versions of the political celebritization typology. For instance, Darrel West and John Orman (2002, 2–6), identify the following categories of celebrities: Those who embroiled in political scandal, those who became celebrities through their charismatic public performances and those so called ‘famed non-politicos’..who..moved..from..careers..in..popular..culture..to..politics.…………… Meanwhile John Street (2004, 437-438), has divided political celebrities only into two types. The first type directly refers to the politicians (CP1), who trade on their background (e.g. skill, popularity, assets…) and exploit the non-traditional platforms to promote themselves in the field of politics, while the second type (CP2), describes the entertainers, who do not aspire to be elected to office rather to influence and change specific public policy decision or opinion through petitions for example.

Our work is dedicated to the problematic of the businessmen who turned to politics, while every single one of our chosen businessmen politicians has already been wealthy and leading his own successful business before entering the politics. They traded on their business

9 background and wealth thus we can assume that for our work is the most suitable and relevant the Street’s(2004) celebrity typology, namely the CP1 type.

2.4. Policy

Wheeler states, that a successful businessman politician must be able to produce a political narrative that is consistent with his political agenda. Having said that it is apparent that policy , among other elements, plays a crucial role in politics thus it is important for us to fully understand its meaning. To begin with, term policy stands for the content-oriented element of the politics.

“At its most basic, policy is a course or principle of action, adopted or proposed by a government, party, business or individual” (Vowe 2008).

Vowe (2008), discusses the struggle to pin down the main features of the policy in general, as the term itself might be used in many ways, varying from institution to institution. Despite of the struggle, he characterized some of the essential features that all the policies must have in common. Vowe argues, that in general every policy: states matter of principle, is focused on action (stating what is to be done and by whom) and it is an authoritative statement, made by a person of institution with power to do so.

The work is going to focus particularly on the policy in the sense of the action e.g. what is to be done by each of the chosen politician businessmen after they are elected in conjunction with the similarities between the character of each of the businessmen’s proclaimed policies.

2.5. Electorate

People, voters, citizens or in other words electorate, this is another key ingredient for someone who wants to succeed in politics. Wheeler stresses the importance of the politician’s skill to draw a crowd.

In the most countries, people can vote only if they have a citizenship in the country, where the elections are held and only if they are eighteen years old plus. Since we are going to work with the case studies from the Czech Republic, Italy, Slovakia , Ukraine and the USA, we note that in each of these countries the citizens must be at least 18 years old to join the electorate, thus

10 contribute to choosing a government representative or president. Hence, in this sense the search for the similarities in the electoral support remains objective.

In this work we will take a closer look at the most supportive voter segment of the electorate of each of our five celebrity businessmen politician, in response to the character of their proclaimed policies. Having said that Key (1966) notes that: “If politicians perceive the electorate as responsive to father images, they will give it father images. If they see voters as most certainly responsive to nonsense, they will give them nonsense. If they see voters as susceptible to delusion, they will delude them. If they see an electorate receptive to the cold, hard realities, they will give it the cold, hard realities” (Key 1966:3).

Secondly, in the comparison part, we are going to find out whether Key’s claim was correct, additionally to what extend did the celebrity businessmen’s electorate correspond with the businessmen strategically placed policies.

Nevertheless Key (1966) concludes, that there are many people, whose voters’ behavior might be unpredictably odd, however the most importantly, the majority behaves rationally and responsibly, taking to consideration the presented choices and provided information. On the other hand, we must acknowledge that there are possible cases, when there is a lower probability that voters would act rationally, however on purposes of our analysis we are going to count on the rational choices’ theory (Tversky and Kahneman 1986)3 as it is required for the research.

2.6. Media

According to Chomsky (1997), mainstream media might be described as a general term for the large mass media news (e.g. newspapers, broadcast media…), which influence masses of people, and at the same time reflect and shape prevailing currents of thoughts of the society. Chomsky alongside with Herman (1988) points out the fact, that mainstream media have the tendencies to represent government and corporative interests. Therefore, this might be one of the reasons, for some people to prefer the alternative media over the mainstream.

Atton (2002), believes that alternative media act as an advocacy of the interests of those minorities that were excluded from the mainstream e.g., the ethnic minorities, LGBT identities and the poor etc. John Downing (2001) believes, that non-commercial alternative media not only differs from mainstream media in their content but also in their production and distribution. Having said that, alternative media takes different forms e.g., internet, print,

11 audio, video. However, internet nowadays plays the crucial role in the information distribution. Namely the social media have become a very strong alternative media tool of influential communication, due to the growing availability of high-speed internet everywhere and for everyone. Facebook, Instagram or Twitter offer the opportunity to express one’s thoughts in an uncensored and raw way.

3. Methodology Part

The main purpose of this bachelor thesis, as we have already stressed, is to find the common signs of the celebrity businessmen politicians who turned to politics and succeeded. In order to provide an objective and relevant research conditions we have chosen to conduct the research, based on the case studies of 5 successful businessman politicians: Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, the Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Slovak National Council deputy Boris Kollár, the president of Ukraine Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko and the president of the USA Donald John Trump. Specifically, we are going to analyze and compare the way, in which the wealthy businessmen handled their political campaigns. Meanwhile, in this part we would like to specify the research questions alongside with the indicators and chosen strategies that are going to contribute to finding the answers.

3.1. Questions and research

In the times of “apolitical” and “anti-establishment” politics, it would be interesting to find out why the certain groups of people are becoming more successful in politics. In our work we are specifically focused on the celebrity businessmen politicians who succeeded in politics, thus we are coming up with a few questions that need to be answered so that we would understand today’s trends better.

The main research question of this bachelor thesis can be formulated as following:

• “What are the common signs of the businessmen who turned to politics and succeeded?”

The secondary questions will help us to answer the main question of the research, and might be formulated as following:

• “What kind of differentiations are the businessmen using to distinguish them from the traditional politicians?” • “Are the businessmen likely to misuse their assets (e.g. media) in order to be more successful in politics?”

3.2. Indicators and the research design

The indicators that we are going to work with in the comparison part are mainly based on the characteristics of the concept of the successful celebrity politician according to Wheeler: policy, electorate and media.

“Wheeler defines successful celebrity politicians as those who can draw a crowd, create a political narrative consistent with their political agenda, and speak through popular culture to communicate a narrative-based agenda” (Shane and Semler 2014:191).

Furthermore, we have added one extra indicator, which is the businessmen’s motivation to enter the politics at the first place. This indicator does not come from the definition, but then again, we believe that it could benefit to our research in terms of broadening the contextual dimension. Now we are going to describe those four indicators.

• Firstly, we are going to focus on the motivation of each businessman to enter the politics, majorly based on the information directly provided by them and their political parties. However, in some cases, when we will not be able to get the information directly, we will have to analyze the situational context in order to do so. • The second indicator is policy and comes from the Wheeler’s statement, that successful businessman politician must be able to create a political narrative consistent with their political agenda. We are going to work with the term policy in the sense of what is to be done by each of the five politician businessmen after they will be elected, based on the analysis of their declared electoral program. • Thirdly, Wheeler stands the opinion that the successful businessman politician must be able to draw a crowd. Thus, we are going to look for the similar characteristics of each of the five businessmen’s most supportive electorate. In this case we are going to search for

the most supportive voter segment of the electorate of each of our five celebrity businessmen politician, in response to the character of their proclaimed policies, based on the exit polls and electoral geography analysis. • And lastly, Wheeler notes that a successful businessman politician must be able to speak through popular culture to communicate a narrative-based agenda, which makes media to be our last indicator used in the comparison. Hence we are going to analyze the businessmen’s relationship with the media, based on their proclaimed attitude and the ways in which they had used the media before they won the elections.

3.3. The research design

In the theoretical part we get to know the theoretical information regarding the terms which are going to be worked with throughout the whole work.

On the other hand, in the upcoming Analytical part we are going to produce the literature review that gathers all the important information about the personal and professional lives of five celebrity businessmen politicians we focus on. With this information we can better understand the challenges that the businessmen were facing before the elections and the way the voters responded to them. Overall this politicians’ introduction plays the important role of the informational framework for our forthcoming comparison.

Having said that, the comparison part is going to include the process of searching for the similarities and differences between the given indicators: motivation, policy, electorate and media, of each of the five celebrity businessmen. Timewise, firstly we are going to focus on time period before they have ever succeeded in any elections. This will provide us with the information and background story explaining their motivation to enter the politics. On the other hand, in our search for the similarities in their policy, electorate and media we are going to focus on the last elections in which each businessman succeeded, as they will provide us with the most up to date data. Nevertheless, Silvio Berlusconi is the only exception because in his case we have decided to choose the last elections after which he has become the prime Minister of Italy. You will find more detailed explanation in the chapter dedicated directly to Silvio Berlusconi.

In terms of sources and literature, we are going to work with the books, journals and web pages so that we would be able collect more relevant data regarding this topic, which is not

14 very discussed issue among scholars by far. We are trying to use many sources produced directly by our chosen businessmen politicians. This will allow us to authentically understand their way of thinking and acting, yet we try to remain objective.

4. Analytical Part

At the beginning of analytical part in the chapters about biography and situational context in the countries we make a brief review about politicians’ personal lives, followed by their business careers. Then we are going to continue by the explanation of the ways they entered the politics in conjunction with the situational context explaining the motivation behind their decision to do so.

The last information we are going to discuss, is regarding the electoral success of the businessmen politicians. We are going to briefly present their victory in their last elections in which they succeeded. Nevertheless, there is an exception in the case of Silvio Berlusconi, in whose case we are going to focus on the elections in 2008 when he became a prime minister of Italy for the third and the last time. We are not going to deal with the more recent elections in 2013 because in that time Berlusconi has been already convicted of tax fraud by Milan court and barred from holding public office for five years (NYTimes 2012).

4.1 Andrej Babiš

Andrej Babiš, was primarily a successful businessman in the field of agricultural fertilizers but..later.he..decided..to..enter..the..politics. In the year 2011 he found the populist political antiestablishment protest movement called ANO 2011 and then between the years 2013-2017 he served as the Czech Minister of Finance. Since December 2017 he has been the prime minister of the Czech Republic.

“I did not believe that somebody would vote for me. I come from Slovakia, I do not speak Czech well and in the past, I was a member of the communist party. Moreover, I am rich. That was just against the odds”(Babiš 2017: 3).

4.1.1. Biography and Situational context in the Czech Republic

Andrej Babiš was born in the year 1954 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (todays Slovakia). In his childhood he and his family were moving out a lot because of his father’s work as a Czechoslovak..delegate. Thanks to studying and working abroad, Andrej Babiš has learned English and French, which helped him in his future career life. He always wanted to travel and earn a lot of money just like his father. Having this in mind he decided to study foreign business at the Slovak Economic University (Anobudelip.cz 2011).

Just like his father, Andrej Babiš also joined the Czechoslovak communist party and admits that he belonged to the “Economic’’ communist secret police force (Anobudelip.cz 2011). Babiš worked for years in the corporations that specialized in the chemical substances. However, in the year 1993, right after the Czechoslovakia was divided, he found a conglomerate called Agrofert, that operates in the fields such as: agriculture, logistics, energy and forestry etc. (Anobudelip 2011).

Thanks to Agrofert, he has become one of the richest businessmen in the country. Subsequently Forbes in 2017 claimed, that Andrej Babiš really was the most influential person in the world of Czech media, because back then he owned the media house MAFRA which has published multiple news (e.g. Lidové noviny, iDnes.cz…) as well as the radio station (Impuls) and TV channel (Óčko).

Having said that, except of being a successful billionaire businessman, he decided to enter the politics in 2011. Andrej Babiš (2017) himself in his book claims, that he has entered the politics because the ‘traditional’ Czech political parties did not do a good job in ruling the country. He mainly criticized the corruption affairs, that were in his opinion much more frequent and worse than in the western countries.

Thus, the main policy and proclaimed official aim of his populist political anti-establishment protest movement ANO 2011 to these days has remained the same: To unite all the movements and all the people who want to change the current situation in the country. Nevertheless, taking into consideration the fact, that the corruption in politics was one of the main catalysts for Babiš’s entrance to politics, it is upsetting to realize that right from the beginning of his political career, Babiš himself has been facing multiple corruption scandals and allegations regarding his corporates’ and state’s bonds(Sme 2017).

Nonetheless Babiš (2017) himself was surprised by the electoral success, because he declares that the world of politics was brand new for him, claiming that it is the world of hypocrisy, hostility, lies and manipulations. Though he stands the opinion, that he succeeded in the elections in 2013 because many people were desperate and overwhelmed by the traditional corrupted political parties. Having said that in 2013 parliamentary elections, protest movement ANO finished in the second place, right behind ČSSD (Czech Social-Democrat party), with the surprising score of 18,65 % votes. This was a successful start of Babiš’s political career.

Electoral success

In the case of the Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, we focus on the parliamentary elections that were held in the Czech Republic on 20th and 21th October 2017. After the success in the elections, political party of Andrej Babiš has secured the seats in the lower house of parliament and he.has.become.a.prime minister of.the.country.

According to the official data provided by server volby.cz (2017), ANO won the elections over 30 other political subjects with the result of 29,64%. We are not going to go in much detail of the electoral results as it is not relevant for our work, however it is important to note that no other political subject, ‘traditional’ political parties included, has achieved more than 11,32% in that elections. Moreover, 2017 elections have not only proved that ANO has three times higher rate of the electoral support than its most successful political opponent ODS (Civic Democratic Party), but also the rising trend of the protest movements in the Czech Republic. The Pirate party that unites the disappointed liberals alongside with the far-right, anti-EU SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy) happened to be the third and the fourth largest parliamentary players. This has been noticed and discussed by the foreign media as following:

“(…) Businessman pledging to fight political corruption while facing fraud charges himself, (…) is the first to break a quarter century of dominance by two mainstream center-right and center-left parties, highlighting a shift in Europe where a refugee crisis has helped to rise protest groups” (Reuters 2017).

Nevertheless, Andrej Babiš has maintained his popularity despite of the charges claiming that he illegally received a 2-million-euro EU subsidy when he ran his food, agriculture and chemical conglomerate Agrofert, worth an estimated $4 billion, before entering politics (Reuters..2017).

Subsequently, success of ANO in the parliamentary elections in 2017, except prioritizing the economic policy that has concluded in rapid economic growth, the lowest unemployment in the EU and the wages that are growing at their fastest rate in a decade, might be driven by the peoples fear of refugee crisis and his policy that rejects further integration of the European Union alongside with the Brussels attempts to force the Czech Republic to take in refugees (Reuters..2017). Nevertheless, this topic is going to be further discussed in the comparison.

4.2. Silvio Berlusconi

Silvio Berlusconi, except of being a successful businessman in the field of Italian realities, became a leader of the center-right populist party Forza Italia (FI) (Woods 2009, Conti 2015). He was also three times elected as Italian Prime Minister and till the year 2017 he was the owner.of.Italian.football.club..A.C..Milan.

Furthermore, Silvio Berlusconi is the founder and shareholder of Italy’s largest and most influential..mass..media..company..called..Mediaset. Having said that, Berlusconi was present in the daily lives of Italian citizens before he even entered the politics. Many scholars claim that the way he personalized politics in Italy might be the reason why so many people supported him throughout most of his political career.

“People live in houses built by Berlusconi, watch TV controlled by Berlusconi, shop at supermarkets owned by Berlusconi, relax on tennis courts and in restaurants built by Berlusconi and adore a soccer team bought by Berlusconi” (Biggiani 2006).

4.2.1. Biography and situational context in Italy

Silvio Berlusconi was born in Milan, Italy on the 29th of September 1936. His father worked in a bank and the world of economics and business ran in the family. However, Berlusconi decided to study law at the Universitá Statale in his hometown. In 1961 he graduated and started his own business career. Regardless of having studied law, he focused on the city development and realities, which happened to be the right choice, despite of many shadows following Berlusconi’s companies that he has established (e.g. Cantieri Riunti Milanesi, Edilnord Sas…) (Travaglio..2003).

Throughout the seventies Silvio Berlusconi primarily focused on building of the residential center in Milan, called Milano Due that turned out to be a very successful project that made him rich and allowed him to extend his business field to the mass media sphere.

According to Bigiani (2006), by the year 1987, Berlusconi owned three biggest Italian TV channels (Italia Uno, Retequatrro, Canale 5) and found the largest and the most influential mass media conglomerate Mediaset. Bigiani (2006), further notes that Berlusconi was in that point controlling circa 90% of the mainstream media. The list of companies, prestigious advertising firms and print news media owned by Silvio Berlusconi could go on and on however this is not relevant information for our work and therefore we will not go in much detail in this issue. On the other hand, it is crucial to understand the circumstances in which the media tycoon entered the politics.

In the nineties happened ‘Mani pulite’ which was a general judicial investigation of the corruption in the Italian politics and concluded in the alleged end of the First Republic and major changes all across the political spectrum. In these times, Silvio Berlusconi found center- right populist political party FI and started his apt political campaign called ‘Clean hands’. Berlusconi claimed that he would fight against corruption, stabilize the country and secure a fresh start for the Italian Second Republic. He was willing to use his assets, as tools of the manifestation of his great leading skills in order to get people’s trust.

“Trust me because I can make Italy as rich as I did myself” or “I can make Italy successful as I did the Milan soccer club.(…) Silvio Berlusconi was a formidable pathfinder in making his private life a resource to promote his public role” (Fabrini 2013:9).

In 1994, after 3 months of the existence of FI, the well-known businessman won the elections and became Italian prime minister for the first time. According to Reuters (2013), Berlusconi was the prime minister for nine years in total, thus he is the longest post-war prime minister of Italy and third since Italian unification. Fabrini (2013) sums up, that Berslusconi was prime minister again from 2001 to 2006 and for the third and the last time in the time period between the years 2008 and 2011. Moreover, Fabrini (2013) notes, that even during the times when Berlusconi was not in the government, he continued to be a powerful player not only as the leader of the opposition, but also the most central political figure in the country, despite of the numerous scandals and affair that he has been involved in. According to NYTimes (2012), the plot-twist, which has caused Berlusconi to step out of the spotlight of the Italian politics, happened at the end of the year 2012, when Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud by the Milan

19 court and barred from holding public office for the upcoming five years. His four-year sentence was reduced to one year under a law aimed at reducing prison overcrowding. In that time, he was also on trial over charges with paid sex with an underaged prostitute and banned from the politics for the time period of five years (NYTimes 2012).

4.2.2. Electoral success

In the case study of Silvio Berlusconi, we will further discuss and analyze the general elections that were held on 13-14th of May 2008. We have chosen this election because in this election, Silvio Berlusconi became the prime minister of Italy for the third and the last time. Besides, since the end of the year 2012 Berlusconi was focused on combating the numerous trials and allegations, resulting in the 5 years long public office holding ban (NYTimes 2012).

BBC (2014) notes, that the main reason why the trials happened to come up all at once, was caused by Italy’s Constitutional Court that swept away part of passed in the year 2010 granting one and a half months of immunity to Berlusconi and some of his senior ministers.

Nevertheless, the electoral results in the Italian general elections 2008 were very pleasant for Berlusconi and his ‘transformed’ Forza Italia into PdL (The People of Freedom). PdL formed the center-right coalition with the LN (North League) and MpA (Movement for Autonomy) and together they won the elections against the center-left coalition led by Walter Veltroni. The center-right coalition won with the percentage rate of 46,8% in the Chamber of Deputies and 47,3% in the Senate of Republic, in contrast to the center-left coalition led by Walter Veltroni that was almost 10% behind their score (Reppublica 2008).

4.3. Boris Kollár

Boris Kollár, was primarily a Slovak billionaire and successful businessman in the field of the sky resort’s development, radio broadcast industry, airplane transport and many more. However, in the year 2015 he has decided to enter the politics. Less than four months before the general elections he found the center-right populist protest political movement called SME RODINA (We are the family) (Hnutie Sme Rodina 2015). Boris Kollár succeeded in the elections with his new political populist movement and despite of not being one of the governing parties he has become a strong opposition player in the Slovak National Parliament.

“I have entered the politics with my own money. My clients and Slovak citizens… Everybody knows me. I can make things fair. I am not a politician and I never want to become ” (Kollár 2015c)

4.3.1. Biography and situational context in the Slovak republic

The leader of SME RODINA was born on the 14th of August in the year 1965 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (NRSR 2015). He comes from a very poor family and he was raised only by his mother (aktuality 2015). When he graduated high school, he decided to start to work right away. Later on, in 2010 he decided to attend the Central European University in Skalica. In 2015 he has graduated and received the degree in the field of environmental management.

As we have already mentioned, Boris Kollár was primarily a businessman. He started small businesses during the communism. However, he happened to earn significantly more money in 1988, when he was intending to sell his computer. Many state companies responded to his offer and earned the money that he could later invest in the future business activities (actuality.2017).

Since 1990, Kollár invested his time and energy in the ski resort development in Donovaly, Slovakia. He found Tatranská company, that to these days’ controls most of the ski resorts in Slovakia. This made him rich and empowered enough to further extend his spheres of business interests (Kollár 2015a). In 1999 he decided to buy one of the biggest and most influential radio broadcast stations in the country called Funradio. Boris Kollár has multiple times publicly explained the reasons why he has no trust in the mainstream media, which might be also the philosophy behind his investment into the radio broadcast medium (Kollár 2015a).

Throughout his life he has been always confronted by the medialized sexual scandals and affairs. He earned the nick name ‘The Slovakia’s most famous multi daddy’ because to these days he has 10 kids with 9 different women. Even the name of his political protest movement, that has been found on the 10th of November 2015, SME RODINA (We are the family) might be the satire on his personal life. Kollár claims that the biggest motivation behind entering the politics was to protect his kids, family and country (Kollár 2015b). SME RODINA, states that they were found in a reaction to the current situation in Slovakia and Europe in general. The political movement has remained highly concerned about the refugee crisis in Europe as well as the corruption in the Slovak politics ruled by oligarchs and financial groups (Hnutie Sme Rodina 2015).

“(…) I am not a politician. (…) You know, in Slovakia the word politician has changed its meaning over the time. It has become a pejorative word. (…) People believe that politicians must be corrupted” (Kollár 2015c).

4.3.2. Electoral success

In the case study of the celebrity businessman politician Boris Kollár, we are going to focus on the Slovak parliamentary elections that were held on the 5th of March 2016. Out of 23 competing political subjects only 8 were able to cross 5% quota.

SME RODINA, despite of the fact that it was found less than four months before the elections has achieved 6,62%, which is a huge success taking to consideration the lack of time for the proper political campaign launched and execution. And SME RODINA ended up in the parliamentary opposition because they principally rejected to join the government, of leading political social democrat party SMER.

Another big surprise of the elections of 2016 was the fact that, neo-Nazi anti-establishment and Eurosceptic party-Slovak National People’s Party Our Slovakia made it to the parliament with the score 8,04%.

This fact only further supports the hypothesis that the anti-establishment and protest parties and movements are on the rise throughout the whole Europe, Slovak Republic included.

4.4. Petro Oleksiyovych Porshenko

Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko is the current president of Ukraine since the year 2014 but before he has held many other important roles in the Ukrainian politics (e.g. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine…).

Before Poroshenko has entered the politics, he was primarily focused on his business career development. He found the large-scale confectionery company in Ukraine, called Roshen and he was also a CEO of a group corporation, that belongs to the leading agri-industrial companies in the whole country named Ukrprominvest (Gardner 2016).

Subsequently, Poroshenko’s sphere of successful business expanded when he has become the owner of one of the Ukraine’s most influential TV news channels named 5 Kanal (BBC 2014).

In a summary, Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko is one of the most influential Ukrainian oligarchs, because of to the scale of his business assets in the fields of agriculture, manufacturing, finances and mass media alongside with his political influence that includes several periods at government preceding to his current presidency (BBC 2014).

“The oligarchs have been able to maintain their significance and influence by monopolizing key economic sectors” (Konończuk 2015).

4.4.1. Biography and situational context in Ukraine

Current Ukrainian president and oligarch was born in Bolhard, Ukraine on the 26th of September 1965. According to the official website of Petro Poroshenko, in 1989 he graduated at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyjv, where he specialized on the International Economic Relations.

During Poroshenko’s studies he has found a legal advisory company that mediated contracts in the foreign trade (e.g. Cocoa beans supply). During the time period between 1993 and 1998 Poroshenko was a CEO of a group corporation called Ukrprominvest, which belongs to the leading agri-industrial companies in Ukraine (Osw 2014). Furthermore in 1996 Ukrprominvest acquired control over several state-owned confectionery enterprises which were combined into the Roshen group that is the leading confectionery manufacturing company in the country (Osw 2014). By 2013, Poroshenko’s Roshen became one of the 20 largest sweet-makers in the world and provided him with most of his fortune (Gardner 2016).

Nevertheless, the list of the companies owned by Petro Poroshenko could go on and on (e.g. Kuznya na Rybalskomu shipyard or the 5 Kanal news television channel…) but we are not going into more detail of this issue as it is not the subject of our work.

According to Gardner (2016), in 1998 when Poroshenko natively entered the politics and won a seat in the Ukrainian Parliament , his business was booming and stable.

“Those who do business in Ukraine, at some point, either get involved in the political world or become politicians themselves. For Poroshenko, the latter was the case For Poroshenko, the latter was the case”(Spiegel 2014).

Poroshenko won his first elections as a member of the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SPDU), which was a political party in favor of the president Leonid Kutschma. Tadeus (2014) further notes, that in 2000 when Poroshenko decided to leave SPDU and found center-right fraction called Party of Ukraine’s Solidarity (PSU) that has been changed and became the Party of the Regions. However more importantly it’s character, unlike political parties of Berlusconi, Babis or Kollár, Poroshenko’s party was rather pragmatic than populistic (Tadeus 2014).

In the past, Poroshenko served multiple times as a people’s deputy and according to the Poroshenko’s official web site, he even served as a Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine in the time period between the years 2009-2010 as well as he served as a Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine in 2012.

However, Poroshenko’s main success in the field of politics happened in the year 2014 when he won the presidential elections. According to Tadeus (2014:1) Poroshenko:“(…) swept away the notion of Ukraine as an inherently divided state, by winning in every region.”

The situational context before the presidential elections in 2014 might be explained by the events of anti-governmental protest called Maidan, which was triggered by the ex-president Viktor Yanukovich, who formed a group around him (“the family”) that started to expand their influence and business assets. “The family” was involved in multiple corruption scandals and refused to sign the Ukraine-European Union Association Agreement (Konończuk 2015). Petro Poroshenko actively supported the protest because of his intentions to preserve the pluralism in Ukraine. Which led to an upsurge of his popularity (Tadeusz 2014).

(Poroshenko):“From the beginning, I was one of the organizers of Maidan. My television channel 5 played a tremendously important role. (…) This was a fight for Ukrainian freedom and democracy” (The Washington Post 2014).

4.4.2. Electoral success

Following the removal of Viktor Yanukovich and the Ukrainian revolution the new presidential elections were held on the 25th May in 2014 during the Crimea crisis. Petro Poroshenko happened to win the elections in every single region of Ukraine with the absolute majority in the first round (54,7%). “Live in a new way” was Poroshenko’s campaign slogan that symbolizes the events of Maidan and Crimea crisis. Poroshenko has won against Yulia Tymoshenko who received less than 13% of the votes and 3other candidates that did not reach more than 8,5%. each.

Poroshenko promised to fight against the corruption, to secure pluralism and democracy in Ukraine, to make some steps further towards full Ukrainian EU Membership and to get annexed Crimea back from the Russians.

4.5. Donald Trump

A Republican Donald J. Trump has been inaugurated as President of the United States in January 2017. However, before he has even entered the politics, he was already America’s well-known billionaire businessman and television personality (Wooten 2009).

“He sells his politics how businesses sell their products” (Raconteur 2018).

The field of Trump’s business sphere of interest has broadened throughout the years and includes the real estate development, showbusiness and education.

Subsequently during the presidential elections where he competed against the Democrat candidate Hilary Clinton, he publicly expressed his disagreement with the mainstream media such as CNN and referred them as untrustworthy and fake(Vox 2018). Ever since he has become more active on his personal and an official Twitter account, which happened to be his main communication channels with public. Many commentators describe Trump’s political positions as populist, protectionist and nationalist (Rothwell 2016).

“People elected me to make America great again. (…) our plan will put America First. Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo” (Trump 2018:2).

4.5.1. Biography and situational context in the USA

Donald J. Trump was born on the 14th of June in the year 1946 in Queens, New York. Business ran in Trump’s family. Having said that, his father Fred found a successful real estate development company. When Donald Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and received his economic degree, he began to work at his father’s real estate company (Trump 2009). Three years later in 1971, Trump was promoted, and became the president of the family company, which he later renamed- The Trump Organization (Trump 2009). The company eventually became the umbrella organization for hundreds of individual partnerships and businesses (Trump 2009). He expanded the company to Manhattan and engaged in the renovations and construction of the skyscrapers, casinos, golf courses and casinos (Wooten 2009). Throughout the years Trump opened his own 58- story skyscraper called Trump Tower, Trump Plaza hotel and casino and purchased a 50 % stake in the Grand Hyatt Hotel (Wooten 2009). Afterwards in 1983 Trump decided to further expand his business and purchased the football team- the New Jersey Generals and a few year later in 1996 he owned part of all the Miss Universe pageants.

By the time Donald Trump has become a well-known public figure that took part in several movies, 14 television series and the reality television show called- The Apprentice (Trump 2009). Alongside his showbusiness ‘celebrity’ activities, Trump also found Trump University, which was a for-profit education company that ran a real estate training program in the time period between the years 2005 and 2010 (Wooten 2009).

In terms of politics, according to Wooten (2009), Trump was not very stable in his political party affiliation. In 1987 we registered as a Republican, then 12 years later he turned independent and in 2009 he went back to Republican. Donald Trump considered to run for president several times but always changed his mind in the end until 2016. When he decided to enter the presidential race and won (Wooten 2009).

4.5.2. Electoral success

United States Presidential Election of the year 2016, were held on the 8th November in 2016. Trump entered the 2016 presidential race as a Republican who defeated 16 opponents in the primaries and won against the Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton. On one hand Donald Trump lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton by more than 2,8 million votes but due to the

26 victory in 30 states and decisive electoral college with 304 votes to Clinton’s 227 he became the 45th president of the United States of America. Rothwell (2016) notes, that in those times when America has been facing the immigration and terrorism threats, Trump’s populist and protectionist rhetoric addressed crowds. Trump claimed to prioritize the safety and needs of the American citizens over anything else.

“We will serve America people and uphold their right to a government that prioritizes their security, their prosperity, and their interests” (Trump 2017:2).

5. Comparison

This section consists of the several indicators that are supposed to provide us with the answers to our research questions. The indicators comprise of the businessmen’s motivation to enter the politics at the first place as well as their proclaimed policy, supportive electorate and their relationship with media. Thus, by the end of the comparison, we should learn what are the similarities in the cases of our five businessmen politicians.

5.1. Motivation (Why do the businessmen enter the politics?)

Andrej Babiš, Silvio Berlusconi, Boris Kollár, Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko, Donald John Trump; each one of them was a successful and wealthy businessman before he has entered the politics. But what were the reasons behind their decisions?

Does their motivation to expand from the business sphere to politics have something in common? Mudde (2018) claims that: “In a political system where money and name recognition are key factors in winning elections, celebrities are well positioned to succeed and thus are (thinking of) entering the politics and winning among uninspiring experienced professional politicians.’’ This might or might not be the explanation, however we are going to search for the real reasons for entering the politics, based on our five-case studies analysis.

To begin with, Andrej Babiš, the current prime minister of the Czech Republic has entered the politics because he was disappointed by the corrupted political situation in the country and wanted to change it (Babiš 2017). He highly criticized the ‘traditional’ Czech politicians, while using the term ‘traditional’ in conjunction with the parties, that have ever hold power in

27 the government. Additionally, Babiš has multiple times publicly expressed his disapproval with the way they rule the country (Babiš 2017). Thus in 2011, Babiš found his own populist, anti-establishment and center-right protest movement called ANO, which would unite all those people who were desperate for change.

Similarly, Silvio Berlusconi the Italian ex-prime minister, too entered the politics on behalf of the general judicial investigation of the corruption in the Italian politics as known as “Mani pulite”. The events of the general investigation resulted not only in the alleged end of the First Republic but also in finding of Berlusconi’s center-right populist political party FI. Just like Babiš’s ANO, Berlusconi’s FI claimed to fight against the corruption in the country.

In the similar way, the Slovak National Council deputy Boris Kollár decided to enter the politics. According to Kollár(2015b), the biggest motivation behind his decision was to protect his kids, family and country. His populist and protest movement SME RODINA was found in a reaction to the corrupted politics in Slovakia and the migration crisis threatening the whole Europe. The movement has been primarily concerned about the corruption in the Slovak politics, ruled by oligarchs and financial groups, as well as about the refugee crisis threatening the European Union (Hnutie-smerodina 2015).

In contrast to the previous businessmen politicians’, it was challenging for us to find the real reasons, that triggered the current Ukrainian president and oligarch Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko to enter the politics. Back in the 1998 he won a seat in the Ukrainian Parliament for the first time, and contrarily to Babiš, Berlusconi and Kollár, his affiliation to political party SPDU was not based on his anti-establishment or protest attitude. The opposite was true. Additionally, our main struggle comes from the lack of relevant sources dedicated to this topic. Most scholars briefly note, that Poroshenko has natively entered the politics when his business was booming and stable with no additional signs of other specific motivation (Gardner 2016). On the other, it is necessary to take into consideration that the political culture in Ukraine differs from the rest of the Europe, for instance in terms of the special position of the oligarchs in the country’s hierarchy pyramid. Konończuk explains that oligarchs: “(…) have been able to maintain their significance and influence by monopolizing key economic sectors” (Konończuk 2015). Nevertheless, speaking of the experiences with the oligarchs/ businessmen in Ukraine, Spiegel (2014) comes up with the clarification that could somewhat lead us to answer what motivated Poroshenko enter the politics back in 1998.

“Those who do business in Ukraine, at some point, either get involved in the political world or become politicians themselves. For Poroshenko, the latter was the case”(Spiegel 2014).

Lastly, the current president of the United States Donald J. Trump unlike Poroshenko, made it clear what triggered him to enter the politics, with his worldwide famous political slogan used in the presidential elections 2016 “Make America Great Again”. The slogan stands for his attempts to prioritize America and American citizens, and just like in the case of Kollár, Trump was also motivated to run for office by immigration and terrorism threats. Republican Trump’s populist and protectionist rhetoric has possibly drawn the crowds.

To conclude this subchapter, we found out that 3 out of 5 businessmen politicians: Babiš, Berlusconi and Kollár, have stated that the growing corruption among their state’s politics motivated them to enter the political sphere at the first place. On the other hand, ironically enough 2 out of these t3 businessmen, who claimed that they have entered the politics because they wanted to fight political corruption, Babiš and Berlusconi, were facing fraud charges themselves (Reuters 2017). And secondly, 2 out of 5 businessmen, Kollár and Trump, claimed that the immigration issue or in general the terrorism threat might be the reason why they have entered the politics.

5.2. Policy (What are their policies oriented at?)

In this subchapter we are going to search for the similarities in the character of the policies of our five businessmen politicians, in the sense of what is to be done by each one of them after they will be elected. Do the businessmen follow any specific patterns, when it comes to choosing their policies to draw a crowd?

Firstly, we have already explained that Andrej Babiš’s motivation to enter the politics was the growing corruption trend in the Czech politics. Now we are going to take a closer look at his proclaimed policy in the Czech parliamentary elections in 2017. According to the official website of ANO (Anobudelip 2017), their policy remained the same ever since the protest movement has been found. They want to differ from the “traditional” political parties in the sense of being true, transparent and against corruption. However, their policy for the parliamentary elections in 2017 comprised of 4 main points: the national safety, the efficient and economical state, the investment in the Czech Republic as well as the investment to “our people” (Anobudelip 2017). In the sense of national safety, ANO wants to focus on the fight

29 against the migration crisis, thus protect the Czech citizens. They want to make more efficient economical state by reducing the national debt as well as by lowering the taxes. Subsequently ANO wants to support the development of the country (e.g. highways) and tourism as well as to restore the citizen’s trust in national jurisdiction.

Before the Italian general elections in 2008, Silvio Berlusocni was on the head of the people’s populist political party PdL. Their policy for the general elections in 2008 was principally based on the 7 main points: national development, support of the young families, national security and justice, service to citizens, support the South, federalism and the public finances system improvement (Ilsole24ore 2008). Having said that, we can already spot some similarities with Andrej Babiš’s policy. Firstly, just like Babiš, Berlusconi’s policy focuses on the national development including the contructions of highways alongside with the support of tourism in the country. PdL, just like ANO, feels concerned about the migration and terrorism threat, thus suggests to focus on providing the maximum level of protection to the Italian citizens. Additionally, similarly to ANO’s program to restore citizen’s trust in the national jurisdiction also Berlusconi wants to focus on this issue. And lastly both of them wants to improve the efficiency of the economic system in their countries by growing the incomms and lowering the fiscal presssure.

Boris Kollár, has entered the politics in 2015 and found the populist, protest movement Sme Rodina. Just like Andrej Babiš and Silvio Berlusconi, Boris Kollár has entered the politics because he wanted to change the corrupted political system in his country. In 2016 he succeeded in the parliamentary elections with his policy highly based on the several points: support of the young families, system changes in favor of the elderly, reform of the taxation system, strengthening the national security in context of migration crisis (Hnutie-smerodina 2015). Furthermore, we can see more clearly that except Berlusconi also Kollár wants to support the young families, and just like Andrej Babiš and Silvio Berlusconi wants to prioritize the people. All of three businessmen politicians wants to work on more efficient state’s economy through the changes in the taxation system. Unlike Berlusconi and Babis, Kollár does not want to uniformly lower the taxes for anyone, but he wants to decrease them for the regular businessmen and increase them for the oligarchs and monopoles. All three businessmen stands the opinion that in order to help to the state’s economy it is important to invest in the renovations and development of the state in order to attract more tourists thus earn more money. And lastly, we cannot forget the security policy. Babiš, Berlusconi and

Kollár, stress the importance of keeping the citizens of their countries safe and in order to do so it is necessary to fight with the illegal migration and terrorism.

Petro Oleksijovych Poroshenko is one of the Ukraine’s most influential Oligarchs, who decided to race in the presidential elections in 2014, right after the demission of the ex- president and controversial oligarch Vitor Yanukovich. As we have already discussed in the analytical part, Poroshenko actively supported the protest Maidan against Yannukovich, because he wanted to preserve the Ukrainian democracy and freedom (The Washington Post 2014). Via Maidan Poroshenko gained the major popularity and support from the electorate. His policy was based on the current events of Maidan as well as the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in March 2014. Poroshenko in his presidential campaign promised to fight against the corruption in politics and to secure pluralism and freedom in Ukraine that has been endangered by the previous president. Poroshenko also promised to make necessary steps for the Ukraine to become an EU Member as well as to get illegally annexed Crimea back. If we would focus on the comparison of the character of Poroshenko’s policy with the policies chosen by Babiš, Berlusconi and Kollár, we would notice that it mostly differs. Having said that it is logical, that if the challenges that the countries are facing differ, the politician’s policies must be different as well. Poroshenko’s policy must be primarily focused on the mayor issues (e.g. EU membership, Crimea) so that after he would be able to start with the minor ones e.g. supporting tourism or lowering the taxes.

Lastly, we are going to look at Republican Donald J. Trump’s populist and protectionist policy that he has proclaimed during the United States Presidential elections in 2016. His famous campaign slogan “Make America Great Again” made a clear statement that he is up to make some major changes. Trump claims that: “We will serve American people and uphold their right to a government that prioritizes their security, their prosperity, and their interests” (Trump 2017:2). In practice by serving the American people, Trump meant to lower the taxes, replace Obamacare, support veterans and end stifling regulations(Donaldjtrum 2016). Additionally, just like previous businessmen, Trump also stresses the importance of the national security. Namely the need to strengthen the boarder protection and military to secure higher level of protection against the immigrants and terrorist threats. It is a common belief, that Trump won the elections because of his populist and protectionist rhetoric. But is it true that populism and protectionism might be efficient characteristics of the businessmen policies?

After we have discussed all the policies of our five businessmen politicians we must admit that the statement might be correct to a certain extend. Throughout the comparison we have noticed that each of businessmen expressed their strong will to protect their nation. In the case of the European businessmen, they wanted to protect their boarders from the illegal migrants, Poroshenko wanted to protect Ukraine from the Russian aggression and Donald Trump wanted to protect Americans from the illegal immigrants and terrorists. Every businessman expect Petro Poroshenko, promised to serve the people, in sense of prioritization of their needs and to change the taxation system to their advantage. In some way each of the businessmen wants to prioritize the people and their needs. And lastly all of the three European businessmen want to work on more efficient state’s economy through the taxation system change, that would be in favor of regular citizens. Moreover, all of the European businessmen also stand the opinion that in order to help to the state’s economy it is important to invest into the state’s development.

5.3. Electorate (Who voted for them the most?)

At this point we should be already familiar with the businessmen’s proclaimed policies and their shared similarities (e.g. populism and protectionism). However now we are going to search for some resemblance in the characteristic features of their most supportive electorate (e.g. age, gender, occupation).

To begin with according to the research conducted by Median agency in 2017, based on the 1577 respondents, we can describe, what kind of person voted for Babiš’s ANO in the parliamentary elections in 2017 (Vaclavmoravek 2017). The Median research results show, that a typical ANO voter is most likely to be 60 or 60+ years old man, with elementary education or with high school education without upper secondary school examination. Additionally, it is somebody who is up to date most likely unemployed (Median 2017).

Secondly, in the Italian general elections in 2008, Silvio Berlusconi was a head of PdL and the center-right coalition when they won across the country, despite of Italy’s high contrast between the rich northern regions and the poorer southern (The Economist 2015). Because of lack of published exit-polls and literature regarding this issue, we had to analyze the demographic character of PdL’s most supportive regions. Having said that, we found out that PdL in 2008 achieved majorly the most significant results in the southern regions of Italy:

Sardinia, Sicilia, Campania, Puglia, Abruzzo moreover in Berlusconi’s northern home region Lombardi (The Guardian 2013, Electoralgeography 2008). This supports Michal Pink’s (2018) claim, that in general PdL/ FI has typically its biggest stable electoral support in so called ‘white path’ which is situated between Calabria to Naples. Pink (2018) also discussed its demographic features which are following: high percentage of older and unemployed people economically struggling due to the lack of industrialization in this part area. Thus, we can assume that this might be as well the profile of Berlusconi’s most supportive electorate in the 2008 general elections .

Thirdly, Slovak agency Median has provided us with the information regarding the characteristics of typical voter of Boris Kollár’s protest movement SME RODINA in the Slovak parliamentary elections in the year 2016. The research has been conducted in 2016 based on the 1230 respondents. Median states, that the prototype voter of SME RODINA is 30-44 years would be most likely an older woman in household or on the maternity leave with the high school education with or without secondary school examination (Postoj 2016).

Now we are going to look at the most supportive electorate of the Ukrainian president Petro O. Poroshenko, who won in 2014 in presidential elections in every single region of Ukraine with the absolute majority in the first-round despite of country being riven by ethnic cleavages (Charney 2014). This might be caused by the events of Maidan and Russian aggression, that has divided people into those who stand on the side of protesters, thus support Poroshenko and those who stand by the pro-Russian authorities led by Yanukovich. However according to survey conducted by KIIS in 2014, based on the face to face interviews with 2032 respondents, we could define the most supportive typical Poroshenko’s voter as following: 18-29 years old man, from the Western region of Ukraine with the higher education (KIIS 2014).

Finally, in the US Presidential Elections in 2016 Donald Trump has scored an Electoral College victory while losing the popular vote. This made him the fifth elected president to do so while still winning the office (Pewsearch 2016). According to exit polls conducted in 2016 by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, Trump has been mainly supported by someone who is most likely: white male, 45 to 65+ years old with the elementary education or with high school education with/without upper secondary school examination (Pewresearch 2016).

To conclude the topic, in this subchapter we could have noticed many differences between the most supportive electorate’s features, which could have been rooted in the situational context of each state. Nevertheless, we found out that celebrity businessmen’s policies are to a certain extent similar in their populist and protectionist tendencies which seem to mostly draw the electorate, that belongs to the middle-aged to older age category of people, who are unlikely to have a university degree and who tent to struggle with unemployed issues. This only supports our thoughts that people who are struggling in life are more likely to vote for ‘non- traditional’ politicians, in order to change and improve their situation.

5.4. Use of media (What is their relationship with the media?)

After we have familiarized ourselves with the electorate, it is time to discuss and compare our last indicator which is media. We are going to search for the similar features in the businessmen politicians’ relationship with the media, based on their proclaimed attitude in conjunction with the ways in which they had worked with the media before they won the elections.

In 2017 Andrej Babiš, was said to be the most influential person in the field of Czech media industry (Forbes 2017). Forbes supported their argument, by claiming that Babiš has owned the radio station, TV channel and powerful media house MAFRA, that publishes a lot of mainstream news, including the most popular daily Czech news Mladá Fronta Dnes and many more (ČT24 2013). According to ČT24 (2017), despite of Babiš’s public announcements, claiming that he would never attempt to manipulate with his media assets, he has been accused several months before the elections of intentional manipulation with the articles dedicated to his pollical opponents. Survey conducted by agency Median in 2018 further shows that more than 62% of participants believe that Andrej Babiš uses his influence over media to his political advantage (DennikN 2018). Contrastly Babiš himself stands the opinion that right from the beginning of his political career he has been victimized by media which tend to report about him false and miss-leading information(Anobudelip 2011). Thus in 2013 he shared a message via Twitter account, saying that ‘The journalists are very powerful, almost like Twitter’, which could explain, why did he become so active on the social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook) ever since he has turned to politics.

Silvio Berlusconi is another businessman-politician on our list, who is well-known for controlling a large share of mass media industry. According to Biggiani (2006), by the beginning of the 90s, Berlusconi owned three most popular Italian TV channels, and moreover in those times he found the influential mass media conglomerate Mediaset. which was said to controll circa 90% of the mainstream media (Biggiani 2006). Massimo Ragnedda (2011:4) argues that Berlusconi has misused his ‘quasi-monopolistic’ control of media, namely TV through the creation of favorable news while censoring the inconvenient ones. Ragnedda further underlines the powerful effect of TV as a tool of political manipulation, claiming that more than 69% of Italians before the election period receive their political information from TV ( Ragnedda 2011:4). Thus, we can understand why Berlusconi majorly communicated with his electorate via his mainstream media and why did he have no need for the social media usage, which was not as popular and nearly as effective in those times as it is nowadays. It is also important to understand that some groups of people are more likely to be manipulated by media. For instance, TV in Italy is a primary source of information for more than 70% of people with lower levels of education, housewives, pensioners and elderly (Ragnedda 2011:4). Taking to consideration the results of our previous subchapter about the most supportive electorate, we note that these are mainly the characteristics of electorate that seemed to be the most supportive of our businessmen politicians.

Boris Kollár, in comparison with Andrej Babiš and Silvio Berlusconi, owns one Slovak Radio, however, prefers to communicate with his supporters via Social Media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram). His social media presence has been very strong ever since he has anticipated to enter the politics, including in the Slovak parliamentary elections 2016. He mainly uses Instagram and Facebook and less significantly Twitter. Kollár has throughout his political career multiple times publicly expressed his disagreement with mainstream media: “We cannot trust the mainstream media that they would inform us objectively, they present their own opinion and their truth. We cannot call it objective news. (…) I have my opinion and I can freely express it via my Facebook account and via Funradio. Thanks god they cannot fire me from the Funradio” (Kollár 2015a). Nevertheless, there is no evidence that Kollár would neither directly nor indirectly manipulate with the information in Funradio.

Current Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko, is just like our three previous businessmen politicians involved in media industry. He owns one of the most influential TV news channels in Ukraine called 5 Kanal (BBC 2014). According to Kyiv Post (2010), TV and news in Ukraine have always been controlled, censored and influenced by the political interests of

35 oligarchs and government. Therefore Poroshenko’s 5 Kanal played an important role as a voice of opposition during the protest Maidan against the ex-president Yanukovich (The Washington Post 2014). Having said that, we could assume that Poroshenko has used his media assets to his benefit before the presidential elections, but once again, the situational context in Ukraine has been much more complicated, than it was in the cases of Babiš, Berlusconi and Kollár. It differed in the sense that the other Ukrainian mainstream media was already fully controlled by the government, thus we cannot clearly state if Poroshenko has actually misused 5 Kanal to his advantage or if he simply gave a voice to ‘unwanted’ opposition (Kyiv Post 2010). Other than that, Poroshenko has been also active on his social media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) however it was not as significant as in case of Andrej Babiš or Boris Kollár.

Lastly, Donald J. Trump is well-known for his unusual relationship with the news media ever since the American presidential elections in 2016 (Vox 2018). Vox further discusses, that throughout the history many presidents complained to some extent about their press coverage they received, however it has never been as aggressive and explicit as in case of Trump (Vox 2018). Ever since the beginning of his political campaign he has become more active on his personal and official social media accounts (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram), where he regularly expresses his uncensored opinion claiming: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people”(RealDonaldTrump 2017). Nevertheless, in Donald Trump’s case we would not state that he misused his assets and manipulated with the mainstream media, as the social media happened to be his preferred and effective way of uncensored communication with his audience.

To finish this chapter, we found out, that 4 out of 5 discussed businessmen have a negative relationship with the mainstream news media. Andrej Babiš, Boris Kollár, Petro Poroshenko and Donald Trump have either directly or indirectly criticized the mainstream media throughout the times before and after the elections. Except Poroshenko and Berlusconi, this fact has triggered Babiš, Kollár and Trump to be more active on the social media as it allowed them to fully and publicly express their opinion with no limits. In contrast Silvio Berlusconi was the only businessman politician who had no need to criticize the mainstream media or to be active on the social media at all, because back than he had almost 90% of the Italian media under his control. Speaking of media control, four out of our five businessmen owned some sort of media company before the elections, while Babiš, Berlusconi and

Poroshenko, might have been accused of the direct media manipulation to their political advantage.

6. Conclusion

The bachelor thesis focuses on the businessmen who turned to politics and succeeded: Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, the Italian ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, the Slovak National Council deputy Boris Kollár, the president of Ukraine Petro Olexijovyč Poroshenko and the president of the United States Donald John Trump, in context of celebritization phenomenon. To begin with, the main goal of our work was to find a way, in which the businessmen politicians tried to distinguish themselves from the ‘traditional’ politicians moreover, to find out whether they were likely to misuse their assets to their political advantage and finally to answer our main research question: “What are the common signs of the businessmen who turned to politics and succeeded?” On this purpose we have conducted a research consisting of 4 parts: theoretical, methodology, analytical and comparison. The theoretical part familiarized us with the term celebritization and provide us with the Wheeler’s definition of the successful celebrity politician, which further served as a main source of our indicators. These indicators: policy, electorate, media +motivation, are further explained in the theoretical part. Details regarding the research methods are described in the methodology part, while the analytical part serves as an informational framework for the comparison part, which provided..us..with..the..answers..to//our..research..questions. We have learned that businessmen distinguish themselves from the ‘traditional’ politicians in many ways but mostly in the usage of their non-political private life to promote their public role. Having said that, they use their business, money and celebrity status to ensure the people, that they have no need to steal like the ‘traditional’ politicians have, because they are already..rich,..thus..competent..to..run//the..country. Moreover, we found out, that 4 out of 5 businessmen owned some sort of media companies before they won the elections, while three of them might have been accused of the misusage of their media assets to their political advantage (Babiš, Berlusconi, Poroshenko). Furthermore, as a result of the comparison of the indicators we have discovered that the businessmen have more in common than just their business status or likelihood to misuse their assets..in//order//to//be//more//successful//in//politics.

Regarding the common motivation to enter the politics, 3 out of 5 businessmen (Babiš, Berlusconi, Kollár), stated that they have entered the politics because of the growing corruption in their countries, while 2 out of 5 businessmen (Trump, Kollár) claimed that immigration//and//terrorism//were//the//reasons//for//entering//the//politics. In terms of policy, 5 out of 5 businessmen expressed their strong will to protect the nation, as well as to put the needs of citizen first. The policies, which were to a certain extent similar in the populist and protectionist tendencies, seemed to mostly draw the middle aged to older electorate, that is unlikely to have a university degree and that struggle with the unemployment..issues. Finally, our last indicator proved, that 4 out of 5 businessmen have a negative relationship with the mainstream media which has triggered them to communicate with their audience largely via social media.

To conclude, we note that there is a lack of literature dedicated to the businessmen in the politics and thus we believe, that this bachelor thesis could serve as a basis for a further research of this topic.

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candidate-petro-poroshenko/2014/04/25/74c73a48-cbbd-11e3-93eb 6c0037dde2ad_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.fc2402a7e9b6 • Travaglio, M. – Gomez, P.: Berlusconi, 2003.Retrieved November 5, 2018, from http://www.giannivattimo.it/Berlusconi.pdf • Volby, (2017). ‘’ Volby do Poslanecké sněmovny Parlamentu České republiky konané ve dnech 20.10. – 21.10.2017.‘’ Retrieved November 25, 2018 from https://volby.cz/pls/ps2017/ps?xjazyk=CZ • Vox (Jan 9, 2018). ‘’ Donald Trump’s phony war with the press, explained.’’ Retrieved November 27, 2018 from https://www.vox.com/policy-and- politics/2018/1/9/16854368/trump-fake-news • Sme, (Oktober 9, 2017).‘’Klamal Babiš aj banka. Podvod s Bocianím hniezdom dobieha favorita.’’ Retrieved November 25, 2018 from https://svet.sme.sk/c/20668230/klamal-babis-aj-banka-podvod-s-capim-hnizdom- tlaci-na-volby.html#ixzz5XuPSflDa

7.3. Social Media • Twitter.com. Twitter account of Václav Moravec. (https://twitter.com/vaclavmoravec) • Twitter.com. Twitter account of Andrej Babiš. (https://twitter.com/AndrejBabis) • Twitter.com Twitter account of Donald J. Trump. (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump)

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