Parties between thresholds: state subsidies and party behaviour in post-communist democracies

Much has been written about what makes political parties form, persist, change and die. One factor often brought into this discussion is the availability of resources in general and of state financing of political parties in particular. However, an empirical link at the aggregate level is difficult to establish because of various issues of conceptualization, operationalization and measurement. Working at the party level and taking into consideration that state funding provides important resources that make running in elections and achieving a party’s electoral target more likely; this article provides empirical support to the claim that parties who (anticipate to be or) are being funded by the state have a higher chance of forming and surviving in an independent format in the party system. Based on a comparison of 14 post-communist party systems, the main conclusion of the article is that the survival rate for such parties exceeds the survival rate for the non-publicly funded ones in almost all cases. A second, novel and more particular, finding is that parties who find themselves outside parliament, but above the payout threshold, display higher survival rates than parties who are below it

Political party finance regulation in 13 African countries

This report reviews and analyses party financing regulation in 13 African countries, drawing on an in depth scrutiny of party legislation and personal interviews1 with representatives of nine different political parties2 in more than half of those countries (i.e. Angola, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda). It examines the complex dynamics between money and party politics, looking in particular at (1) how public funds are allocated, (2) how campaigns are financed, (3) the different options (and obstacles) parties face when trying to finance their ordinary activities, (4) the type and scope of financial disclosure and oversight, and (5) the extent to which financial violations are sanctioned. Overall, and despite variation in national contexts and national regulations, we find that (1) in most countries party financing regulations are shine by their absence, and (2) party competition is largely unequal. In this context, it is possible to conclude that while incumbents not only receive often the lion’s share of public and private funding, but also have unsupervised access to state resources; opposition parties face the highest hurdles to be able to perform key functions such as mobilization of voter support and electoral campaigning.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Paying for appeasement: On the moderating role of public subsidies in East Central European party politics

Focusing on the relationship between the access of political parties to direct public funding and electoral support for anti-political-establishment (e.g. populist, extremist) parties (APEp), this article tries to fill an important gap in the literature. Whereas previous contributions, mostly focused on the United States or established democracies in Western Europe, have presented contradictory findings, our study of 19 new democracies in East Central Europe clearly shows that the absence of state subsidies for political parties boosts support for those with an anti-political-establishment character. More importantly, and taking into account the minimum legal payout threshold that grants parties access to public subsidies, our results show that the more restrictive the regulations and the greater the difficulties faced by parties in obtaining state help, the higher the support for APEp. Our findings have obvious implications for the development of post-Communist party systems and the future of legislative (party funding) reform in the region

The volatility of volatility: measuring change in party vote shares

Volatility is a widely used term in political science, but even the most widely used measure of volatility, Pedersen's index, can mask as much as it reveals. His simple and elegant calculation has become part of the political science toolbox, but scholars employing this tool have tended to produce distinctly different results thanks to a series of decisions about measurement and classification. Using examples from Central Europe the critical role of decisions related to party continuity and threshold of inclusion are identified. The article not only unpacks the underlying questions addressed by different uses of Peder- sen's index, but offers standards for choosing particular methods over others and outlines steps that should be followed in creating a more accurate measure of volatility

Romania - Polity Contestation and the Resilience of Mainstream Parties

ERC POLCON project funded

On the causes of electoral volatility in Asia since 1948

Electoral stability has been viewed as an essential condition for the healthy functioning of representative democracy. However, there is little agreement in the literature about what shapes the stability of the electorate in general nor much attention paid to that of the Asian electorates in particular. We propose historical legacies, uniquely testable in Asia, as central determinants, but also test for conventional factors examined in other regions. By analyzing more than 150 elections in 19 post-WWII Asian democracies, we find that certain types of authoritarian (military or personalist) and colonial (non-British) legacies have a detrimental impact on the stabilization of the electorate, while some of the findings from other regions apply also to Asia. Our additional finding that such effects of historical legacies, particularly authoritarian interludes, are attenuated and cease to be significant with sufficient maturation of democracy, has important implications for the way party systems develop and democracies consolidate

Earthquake or Hurricane? The Rise and Fall of Populist Parties in Poland

In this chapter, we study the development of the Polish party system since the 1989 Round Table talks, examining the impact that populism might have had on the party system, especially given that populist forces have been present in Poland since its transition to democracy and that populism has always permeated its party system. [Taken from introduction

The Integrity of Political Finance Systems in Asia : Tackling Polictical Corruption

In Asia, the comprehensiveness of political finance systems and the level of implementation vary significantly across countries. This policy paper draws on the 2018 data of the International IDEA Political Finance Database and covers South Asia, South East Asia and East Asia. It investigates three key questions: What are the main corruption risks associated with the funding of political parties and election campaigns in Asian countries? What types of political finance regimes do those countries have? How could existing political finance regimes be improved to tackle political corruption