Original scientific paper
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FINANCING PARTIES AND ELECTIONS IN CROATIA AND ABROAD
Zdravko Petak
orcid.org/0000-0001-5303-4990
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Comparative politics has shown interest in the topic of financing political parties only recently. The reason for this is the fact 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 expenses incurred by party activities in that period increased significantly everywhere, making the traditional sources of party financing such as membership dues, money raised at party rallies and so on, completely inadequate. The first direct consequence of this was a series of corruption scandals when private corporations and wealthy individuals donated money to political parties and especially to officials who were trying to get re-elected. On the other hand, thanks to political culture in certain countries, the practice of supplementing these scarce party funds through a system of public financing of parties and elections from the budget was introduced. The classic example of this development is the conclusion of the Swedish Parliament in 1965 that “parties perform an important function in the perpetuation of democracy, and that the society has the responsibility to provide for the political parties.” 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. In UK, the leftist Labour party has been financed by the unions, while the Conservative party has been supported by the big business. 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. However, a very strict system of controlling the money received by individuals and parties is in place, unlike many countries whose political parties are financed by the state. And finally, the financing of Croatian political parties is looked into. Unlike the developed Western countries, financing of parties has not yet been subjected to major regulation. This issue is touched upon in three articles from the 1993 Law on political parties; they list in rather general terms the types of revenues permitted to the political parties and only perfunctorily stipulate the obligation to account for the way in which party funds are spent and to be transparent about the provenance of the donations. Due to this lack of precise regulation, the flow of party funds is concealed from the public, regarding both its origin and its spending; thus, the Croatian model of financing political parties cannot be likened to any existing model.
Keywords
budget; financing parties; financing elections; comparative public politics; political finances
Hrčak ID:
24363
URI
Publication date:
4.4.2002.
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