scholarly journals Public Funding of Political Parties in Ghana: an Outmoded Conception?

2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ransford Edward Van Gyampo
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (5) ◽  
pp. 543-554 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Stephen Ferris ◽  
Marcel-Cristian Voia

Two margins of political party life in Canada since Confederation (1867) are analyzed—the extensive margin involving entry and exit (together with party turnover or churning) and the intensive margin determining survival length. The results confirm many hypotheses advanced to explain entry and exit—the importance of social and religious cleavage, election institutions, and economic circumstance. More novel are the findings that public election funding and periods with larger immigration flows have reinforced established parties at the expense of entrants and smaller sized parties. The intensive margin uses a discrete hazard model with discrete finite mixtures to confirm the Duverger-type presence of two distinct long-lived political parties surrounded by a fringe of smaller parties. Both parametric and semi-parametric models concur in finding that public funding and higher immigration flows are as successful in extending the life of established parties as in discouraging entry and exit.


2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1618-1643 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Gatti ◽  
Simone Poli

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain the reasons why Law no. 195 of 2 May 1974, which established a system of public funding for the Italian political parties, introduced a system of controls that was light touch in nature. Design/methodology/approach The paper integrates the theoretical framework on regulatory space, proposed by Hancher and Moran (1989), with that of legitimacy (Suchman, 1995) to explain the peculiar nature of the system of controls introduced by the Law. Moreover, a set of primary and secondary sources is used to provide a full comprehension of the context, of the relationships among the actors involved in the regulatory process, and of the nature of the regulated issues. Findings Besides showing that the nature of the output of a regulatory process can be understood as the effect of the peculiar configuration of the regulatory space in which it takes place, the study also sheds light on the role that legitimation can play with regard to the other features of the regulatory space, namely on its ability to strengthen or to limit their effects on the output of the regulatory process. Originality/value The paper deals with accounting and political parties which is a much underexplored topic in the field of accounting history. In addition, from a theoretical standpoint it contributes to extending the theoretical framework by Hancher and Moran (1989).


Author(s):  
Davide Vittori

In the last decades, the cartel party theory has been one of the most discussed topics in the academic literature on political parties. Several publications have dealt with the application of the theory at the systemic level, using a country as a unit of analysis. Less attention has been given thus far to the party level. This analysis is aimed at improving the study of the cartel party theory by focussing on the transformations of three social-democratic parties in Europe: theParti Socialistein France, thePartido Socialista Obrero Españolin Spain, and thePartito Democraticoin Italy. The main findings in this work will not confirmin totothe theoretical assumption of the cartel party, in particular as regards membership and, in part, political convergence. Albeit declining, membership has been resilient in the last two decades. Despite a clear-cut convergence in EU-related issues, political manifestos of mainstream parties have shown a certain degree of polarization. Finally, while the three parties under examination rely almost entirely on public subventions, political parties proved to be capable of reforming the public funding laws, increasing the transparency of donations and reducing the total amount of public subvention.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 254-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jef Smulders ◽  
Bart Maddens

This article examines the determinants of the annual overall spending levels of political parties from a comparative perspective. On the basis of a dataset with 1,317 observations from 99 parties in nine European parliamentary democracies, we illustrate that the spending levels of parties – calculated on the basis of Nassmacher’s index of political spending – have not systematically increased over the past decade. A multilevel analysis shows that, at the country level, spending levels are higher in countries with a longer tradition of public funding, a higher effective number of parties and a shorter democratic tradition. They are also higher in election years, but this effect is moderated when campaign spending limits apply. At the party level, spending levels increase with party strength and party age. Party ideology and government participation, on the other hand, do not have an effect.


Author(s):  
Ingrid van Biezen ◽  
Petr Kopecký

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.


Modern Italy ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-202 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Chiara Pacini

Public funding of political parties in Italy has developed along quite clear-cut lines: increasingly generous reimbursements; non-selective criteria for the allocation of funds; and an increase in the number of beneficiaries. The current reimbursement system costs the State more than 250 million euros a year. The payment of such reimbursements in annual instalments means that in many cases they continue to receive funds even though they are no longer politically active. However, the most problematic issue concerns party fragmentation. Reimbursements are paid out at different levels of electoral competition (European, general and regional), effectively providing parties with different channels of funding. This is a big opportunity, above all for small parties that often find it difficult to reach the thresholds for representation and funding in some spheres of the electoral competition. This is even more evident if one considers that public funding is the main source of revenue for the Italian political parties.


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