Budgetary Policy in Croatia: An Attempt of Evaluation

The main topic elaborated in the paper is the future role of the Croatian government in running Croatian national economy. Also, the role of government budgetary policy in achieving that task will be investigated in order to answer the fundamental question: do the trends in the public consumption in Croatia differ from those in developed countries. To answer this question, the paper is divided into four chapters. The first deals with the analysis of public money politics, by contrasting two opposite approaches: the incremental and the one which is labelled “unrestrained swelling”. The second chapter is devoted to the structure of public consumption in Croatia. The following chapter looks into the government expenditures in Croatia compared with the trends in public consumption in developed countries. The last chapter of the article deals with the role that the Croatian political parties play in the budgetary process

Financing the 2005 Presidential Elections: The Role of Regulative Institutions

The paper looks into the institutional features of regulating the 2005 campaign for the election of the president of the Republic of Croatia. The role of the regulative institutions is analyzed within a broader context of the regulation of political funding in Croatia. The paper deals with the non-transparency of the system of party and election funding in Croatia based on a comparison of the principles of good practice in political funding. Nassmacher’s approach to the regulation of political finance is used as the analytical framework for the analysis of financing the 2005 presidential campaign in Croatia. It s based on four options: the autonomy option, the transparency option, the advocacy option, and the diversified regulation option. Ad finally, the paper offers a brief overview of the funds used by the presidential candidates in the 2005 election campaign

A Comparative Analysis of Financing Parties and Elections in Croatia and in Other Countries

Comparative politics has shown interest in the topic of financing political parties only recently. The reason for this is the fact that a more systematic regulation of financing elections and parties – apart from Sweden where the process of regulation began in the 1960s – started only in the 1970s and 1980s. Namely, the expenditure incurred by party activities in that period increased significantly everywhere, making the traditional sources of party financing such as membership fees, money raised at party rallies and so on, completely inadequate. Since that time the practice of supplementing these scarce party funds through a system of public subsidies of parties and elections from the budget was introduced. The regulation of party financing has not taken the same form in all countries and did not happen at the same time. In the United States, for example, elections are financed mostly from private funds. The expenditure for elections and parties has, however, become a subject of public scrutiny and special auditing, while the financial support limits have been precisely determined. Similar processes have been at work in Canada and Australia as well as in some European countries such as Holland. On the other hand, in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden, a system of heavy reliance of parties on the budget subsidies has gradually evolved. Besides the sources of financing, the regulation covers TV promotion of parties and their candidates. In most countries TV coverage for election campaigning cannot be simply bought since it is precisely regulated; all political actors must enjoy equal access to today’s most ubiquitous medium. The exception to the rule are the United States where TV time for election campaigning is up for grabs. And finally, the financing of Croatian political parties is looked into. Unlike in the developed Western countries, financing of parties has not yet been subjected to major regulation. Due to this lack of precise regulation, the flow of party funds is concealed from the public, regarding both its provenance and its spending

Party Finance Regulation: Causes, Instruments and Impact

Money has a symbolic and practical value in political competition and just because the money is important in politics, it can threaten democracy if its role is not adequately regulated. The basic features of party finance regulation will be shown in this paper: causes, instruments and impact. The regulation of party finances began in 1960s and the causes of the party finance regulation were different: in addition to the prevention of corruption scandals related to political parties and party finance, regulation of party finance has also been introduced to strengthen fair political competition, empower voters and strengthen political parties as effective democratic actors. To achieve this whole range of policy instruments was developed, whose scope extends from ways of regulating the possibility of buying votes, to limit election campaigns expenditure costs. However, impact of party finance regulation is not unambiguous since, due to the regulatory traditions and cultural attitudes, similar instruments of party finance regulation produce different results in different political systems