POLITICS IN CENTRAL EUROPE 12 (2016) 3 83 Business-Firm Parties and the Czech Party System ater 2010 1 PETR JUST AND JAKUB CHARVÁT Abstract: The case study presented in this paper applies the business-firm party con- cept to two political entities active in the Czech party system ater 2010: the Public Afairs Party (VV) and the Action of Dissatisfied Citizens (ANO 2011) movement. We assess whether these actors meet the criteria of the business-firm party model and, thus, whether they can be considered representatives of this type of political party in the Czech Republic. The study concludes with a comparison of VV and ANO 2011 as two possible variations on what is known as the business-firm party model. Key words: Czech Republic, party politics, business-firm party, entrepreneurial party, Public Affairs Party, ANO 2011 Introduction Modern politics is inconceivable without political parties (cf. Schattschneider 1942). hese parties are one of the main forms of political representation in contemporary representative democracies. In recent years, however, political partisanship has generally seen a signiicant qualitative and quantitative shift, in- cluding the transformation of consolidated democracies. he Czech party system is no exception in this regard, and this new trend in its development dates back to at least the end of 2009 and start of 2010. At the same time, the current Czech political scene can hardly be understood if we fail to comprehend its party politics. 1 The article is part of the research projects Czech Democracy 1993–2018 (no. 34–16) and Central European Politics (nos. 34–15), which are being undertaken at Metropolitan University Prague. These projects are funded by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport under its institutional support for research organisation development framework. Politics in Central Europe (ISSN: 1801-3422) Vol. 12, No. 3 DOI: 10.1515/pce-2016-0018