The personal party: an analytical framework

After sharing, through its various steps of evolution, the form and status of a corporate body, the party organization is falling prey to the virus of personalization, which is invading so many realms of contemporary life. Italy provides the clearest example of this cross-national trend with Silvio Berlusconi’s personal party. As a media tycoon and one of the wealthiest men in the world, Berlusconi could rely on a skilled professional apparatus as well as on huge financial means to set up, in a few months, a vote-generating machine and become a Prime Minister. His party model has been widely imitated, by both center-right and center-left organizations, with variations and deviations. This article presents an overview of the development of personal parties in Italy and an analytical framework based on Max Weber’s types of personal power.