Policy Entrepreneur

Someone who establishes a novel project, organization, or political party. There are different types of entrepreneurs. Market entrepreneurs, for example, conceptualize innovative products or solutions in the hope of reaping significant profits for their ideas. The political entrepreneur bears both similarities and differences to his or her market colleague; in contrast to monetary gain, this type of entrepreneur instead seeks administrative change. Both also share some similarities and differences with social entrepreneurs, or persons who use innovative strategies to beneficially ameliorate a collective difficulty or hardship. Although social and political entrepreneurs each seek to promote structural change, they ultimately focus on distinctively different spheres of society. Of course, one should be cautioned against forming overly stringent categories, as the social, political, and economic realms are often deeply intertwined. For more information, see Bornstein (2007).