Comments on: How anomalous is Berlusconi?

By: Unrequired Reading {20.10.08 to 21.10.08}

Unrequired Reading {20.10.08 to 21.10.08} — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:05:36 +0000

[...] How anomalous is Berlusconi? | Chris Hanretty – Berlusconi can be (and has been) compared to other media enterpreneurs who have entered politics, such as Ross Perot or Thaksin Shinawatra (Campus 2006, pp. 165-166, Caniglia 2000), though Berlusconi has been far more successful than either of these. [...]

By: Caminadella

Caminadella — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:28:44 +0000

You are a scientist, and of course scientists like to find patterns where the layman sees anomalies. Anyway, I suspect that when people label Berlusconi as an “anomaly”, they don’t think he violates some universal law of society: he has money and TVs and, well, he uses them every time he can. What they think is that he is able to block important mechanisms of democracy – like freedom of the major news outlets from the direct influence of the exectuive power – while Perot or Bloomberg have never been able to do so.

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:18:40 +0000

Thanks for the comment. The answer is no (but not for the reasons you think: Perot was in ICT, not TV). But political scientists proceed by comparing, and these were the two examples which came most easily to mind. Bloomberg would have been a better example than either. All four are instances of individuals who made their fortune in a field outside of politics, who used that money to buy large amounts of television time to promote their candidacies for political office, and who ignored (Bloomberg) old or created new parties (Perot, Berlusconi, Shinawatra). I’m just like an entymologist collecting members of this species…

By: Caminadella

Caminadella — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:00:52 +0000

Uh? Had Ross Perot’s TVs a 50% audience share? Was the other 50% under the effective control of the political majority?
As to Thaksin Shinawatra : 1 anomaly + 1 anomaly = 2 anomalies.