scholarly journals Parties between thresholds: State subsidies and party behaviour in post-communist democracies

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Casal Bértoa ◽  
Maria Spirova
Keyword(s):  
Survival Rate ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Publicly Funded ◽  
State Financing ◽  
State Subsidies ◽  
Almost All

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 for 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.

Activity of modern right-wing radical parties in the Czech Republic

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-173
Author(s):  
Tetiana Fedorchak
Keyword(s):  
Czech Republic ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
European Integration ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Social Programs ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Czech Republic ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Political Radicalism

The author investigates political radicalism in the Czech Republic, a rather heterogeneous current considering the structure of participants: from political parties to the extremist organizations. The peculiarity of the Czech party system is the existence, along with typical radical parties, of other non-radical parties whose representatives support xenophobic, nationalist and anti-Islamic statements. This is primarily the Civil Democratic Party, known for its critical attitude towards European integration, and the Communist party of the Czech Republic and Moravia, which opposes Czech membership in NATO and the EU. Among the Czech politicians, who are close to radical views, analysts include the well-known for its anti-Islamic position of the Czech President M. Zeman and the leader of the movement ANO, billionaire A. Babich. Voters vote for them not because their economic or social programs are particularly attractive to the electorate, but because of dissatisfaction with the economic situation in the state. Almost all right populist parties oppose European integration, interpreting it as an anti-national project run by an elite distorted by a deficit of democracy and corruption. Keywords: Czech Republic, right-wing radical political parties, European integration, nationalism.

The Paradox of Party Funding

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid van Biezen ◽  
Petr Kopecký
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Organizational Transformation ◽  
Public Funding ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Private Donations ◽  
State Subsidies ◽  
Party Funding ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter addresses the role of public funding in party organizational transformation. Focusing mainly on European democracies, and using the new systematic data obtained from the Political Party Database, this chapter makes two contributions to the party politics literature. First, a range of existing findings about the importance of state subsidies for party life are re-examined, probing in particular the extent to which party incomes depend on public funding, as opposed to private donations and membership fees. Second, the association between parties’ dependence on state subsidies and party organization is explored, probing in particular the relationship between public monies and the size of parties’ memberships. Unlike the first exploration, which largely confirms most existing conclusions about the patterns of party financing, the findings from the second exploration appear to be more challenging: contrary to usual expectations, state funding of political parties does not necessarily undermine party membership.

Throwing out the Bums: Protest Voting and Unorthodox Parties after Communism

2010 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grigore Pop-Eleches
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Statistical Tests ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Survey Experiment ◽  
European Elections ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
East European ◽  
Two Generations ◽  
Collapse Of Communism

The electoral rise of unorthodox parties (UOPs) in recent East European elections raises some puzzling questions about electoral dynamics in new democracies. Why did the power alternation of the mid-1990s not result in party-system consolidation, as suggested by some earlier studies, but instead give way to a much more chaotic environment in which established mainstream political parties lost considerable ground to new political formations based on personalist and populist appeals? Why did this reversal in Eastern Europe happen during a period of economic recovery, remarkable Western integration progress, and a broad acceptance of electoral democracy as the only game in town? This article suggests that these electoral dynamics can be explained by focusing on the interaction between protest voting and election sequence. While protest voting to punish unpopular incumbents has been a widespread but understudied practice since the collapse of communism, the beneficiaries of these protest votes have changed in recent elections. Whereas in the first two generations of postcommunist elections, disgruntled voters could opt for untried mainstream alternatives, in third-generation elections (defined as elections taking place after at least two different ideological camps have governed in the postcommunist period) voters had fewer untried mainstream alternatives, and therefore opted in greater number for unorthodox parties. This explanation receives strong empirical support from statistical tests using aggregate data from seventy-six parliamentary elections in fourteen East European countries from 1990 to 2006, survey evidence from twelve postcommunist elections from 1996 to 2004, and a survey experiment in Bulgaria in 2008.

Do Canadian Political Parties Form a Cartel?

1996 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-333 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather MacIvor
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Selection Methods ◽  
House Of Commons ◽  
Leadership Selection ◽  
New Parties ◽  
Election Result ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
State Subsidies

AbstractThis article summarizes the cartel model of party structure and tests it against the experience of the Canadian party system in the 1990s. Four claims are evaluated: that the three dominant parties in the House of Commons before 1993 colluded to exclude new parties; that they used state subsidies in their own interest; that the 1993 election result was a backlash against the cartel parties; and that Canadian parties are adopting new leadership selection methods in order to allow their leaders greater autonomy. The article concludes that the first two claims are valid while the latter two are not, and discusses some of the implications of these findings for Canadian parties and for the cartel model itself.

scholarly journals State Financing of Political Parties as a Chance for Healing the Party System: Polish Experience and Ukrainian Realities

Politologija ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 166-198
Author(s):  
Oksana Balashova ◽  
Tetiana Sydoruk
Keyword(s):  
Full Article ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Polish Experience ◽  
State Financing ◽  
Theoretical Foundations ◽  
Positive Effect ◽  
Article Abstract

[full article, abstract in English] The process of state financing of the political parties in Poland and Ukraine has been analyzed in this article. The authors have studied and compared the theoretical foundations of the Polish and Ukrainian legislation in the sphere of state financing of the functioning of the political parties. By comparing the experience of state financing of political parties in Poland and Ukraine, the authors have distinguished a number of direct and indirect positive consequences in the party system of Poland. It has been determined that in Ukraine, in turn, considering the lack of legal and public sources for financing political parties, political and economic spheres are closely interdependent, which significantly impedes the qualitative consolidation of the party system in general. The authors have concluded that the positive effect of state financing of political parties is primarily reflected in an increase in the level of openness in how the political parties function, the transparency of the parties’ financial activities, the independence of the party system and the political transparency of civil society.

scholarly journals Voter reaction to government incompetence and corruption related to the 1999 earthquakes in Turkey

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ali T. Akarca ◽  
Aysit Tansel
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Robust Regression ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
Ordinary Least Squares ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Northwestern Turkey ◽  
Almost All

Purpose – Two major earthquakes which struck Northwestern Turkey in 1999 exposed rampant corruption involving construction and zoning code violations. The government’s relief efforts were tainted by corruption as well, and exhibited a great deal of incompetence. How voters responded to these in the next election held in 2002 is investigated. The fact that different group of parties were responsible for the construction of the shoddy buildings, and for the corruption and mismanagement related to relief, provided us with a unique opportunity to determine whether and how the electorate punished the culprits for each of these. The purpose of this paper is to shed light also on the new party system which emerged in Turkey after 2002. Design/methodology/approach – Vote equations are estimated for the seven major political parties. These are fitted to cross-provincial data individually, using ordinary least squares and robust regression methods, and as a system, using seemingly unrelated regressions procedures. The same picture emerges from each of these methods. Findings – Not just those ruling at the time of the earthquakes, but also other parties which were in power when the substandard buildings, were built were held accountable by the electorate. Furthermore, the Turkish voters appear to have allocated the blame rationally, taking into consideration the division of labor in the central government, and the relative influences the parties had on local administrations. Reaction of the voters to government incompetence and corruption was one of the factors which resulted in the emergence of a new party system. In 2002, the AKP, established only a year before, captured almost all of the far-right Islamist, about half of the far-right nationalist, and more than half of the center-right votes in 2002. Originality/value – Corruption usually makes little difference in the fortunes of politicians. Some recent studies suggest that it takes more than just exposure of corruption to get the voters to react. Politicians pay a significant price only when the corruption touches all political parties across the board, is not accompanied by good governance, and competent non-corrupt alternatives are available. The results provide support for this assertion from the natural experiment that has taken place in Turkey.

scholarly journals Electoral Engineering in New Democracies: Strong Quotas and Weak Parties in Tunisia

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Jana Belschner
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Group Representation ◽  
State Funding ◽  
New Democracies ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Gender And Politics ◽  
Electoral Quotas ◽  
Varying Compliance ◽  
Do So

Abstract Bridging the literature on gender and politics, democratization, and political parties, this article investigates the causes of parties’ varying compliance with electoral quotas. Whereas research has so far focused on parties’ willingness to comply, this article sheds light on their ability to do so. It suggests that the more quotas parties have to comply with, and the more complex the quotas’ designs, the more difficult implementation becomes for the organizationally weak parties that we often encounter in new democracies. The argument is developed and substantiated in a comparative analysis of parties’ quota compliance in the 2018 Tunisian local elections. Although the Islamist party was able to comply fully with all quotas (for women, youth and people with disabilities), small secular parties lost a number of lists and state funding due to non-compliance. While the quotas were highly effective in securing group representation, they had repercussions on party and party system consolidation.

scholarly journals A Step Forward in the Minimization of Political Corruption in Financial Support of Political Parties: The Experience of Ukraine and Lithuania

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-130
Author(s):  
Anatoliy Kulish ◽  
Nadiia Andriichenko ◽  
Oleg Reznik
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Financial Support ◽  
Political Corruption ◽  
State Funding ◽  
Financial Activity ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
State Financing ◽  
High Level ◽  
And Control

Abstract Political corruption as a negative phenomenon hampers the democratic and economic development of any state. The experience of foreign countries across the world testifies to the existence of number of reasons conducive to the spread of political corruption. Its study is important both for Ukraine, which is actively taking measures to combat political corruption, and for other countries with a high level of political corruption. The article begins with a study of various approaches to understanding the concept of “political corruption”, the reasons for its emergence and determination of the level of citizens’ trust in political institutions in Ukraine and foreign countries. The main obstacles to minimizing the phenomenon of political corruption in Ukraine are the existence of an effective mechanism for financial support of political parties and control over their financial activity. Based on the analysis of scientific literature, international acts, and legislative acts of Ukraine and Lithuania, the authors disclose the experience of Ukraine and Lithuania in the sphere of state financing of political parties and control over their financial activity. The methods of descriptive comparative analysis and observation of the latest scientific research on this issue guide the work. Proceeding from the existing problem of minimizing the phenomenon of corruption in the funding of political parties in Ukraine and taking into account the development of Ukraine’s legal system, the article presents a number of proposals on improving the legislation of Ukraine on financial support of political parties. The authors also provide a proposal on the need to improve the legislation in Lithuania in the area of indirect state funding of political parties. This article aims to disclose the notion of “political corruption”, to study experience of Ukraine and Lithuania in the sphere of minimizations of corruption in the funding of political parties and control over the use of such financial support, to determine the areas for improving the legislation of Ukraine and Lithuania in this issue, and to show the optimal mechanism of overcoming corruption in political parties, since Ukraine is not the only state where this phenomenon reaches its peak.

From Circles to Parties. Genesis of Party System in Russia in the Beginning of 20th Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 464-470
Author(s):  
Kirill A. Solovyov
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Party System ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
The Public ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
In The Beginning

The article is devoted to the general patterns of political parties formation in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. They were preceded by proto-party organizations that were far from being ideologically monolithic. Under the conditions of rapid differentiation of political forces, the existing alliances were often accidental and situational. They hung on to the legacy of the pre-revolutionary era, when the public was just “learning” to talk about politics, and the boundaries between different ideological structures were quite rather relative.

TRENDS AND PROSPECTS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE INSTITUTION OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN MODERN RUSSIA

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 87-95
Author(s):  
D.L. TSYBAKOV ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Party System ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Party Elites ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
State Bureaucracy ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Post Industrial

The purpose of the article is to assess the nature of the evolution of the institution of political parties in post – Soviet Russia. The article substantiates that political parties continue to be one of the leading political institutions in the modern Russian Federation. The premature to recognize the functional incapacity of party institutions in the post-industrial/information society is noted. It is argued that political parties continue to be a link between society and state power, and retain the potential for targeted and regular influence on strategic directions of social development. The research methodology is based on the principles of consistency, which allowed us to analyze various sources of information and empirical data on trends and prospects for the evolution of the party system in the Russian Federation. As a result, the authors come to the conclusion that in Russian conditions the convergence of party elites with state bureaucracy is increasing, and there is a distance between political parties and civil society.

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