In many of the world’s largest democracies it looks like politics is being disrupted by similar forces that took many of the industrial conglomerates by surprise toward the end of the last century: Political parties are facing their own version of the innovator's dilemma. Just like the entrants that successfully took on large corporations then and disrupted their markets, the latest wave of political parties (and candidates) are doing something similar in the realm of politics. The difference is that the consequences of disruption in politics are probably much larger, sometimes for good and sometimes for bad. At present, I predict, the latter.

An interesting insight from the the innovator’s dilemma is that, it is not necessarily bad decision making by incumbent firms that cause them to lose out to entrants. Instead, it is the ability of entrants to react without cannibalizing existing markets that often give them the edge. Thus, even though political party strategists could benefit from picking up a copy of the book, history shows us that sometimes change is inevitable.