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Political finance regulation is often praised in terms of its ability to introduce equality among political parties, to create more transparent political parties and to lower the influence of affluent donors on the political decision-making process. Little examination exists, however, of the effectiveness of this type of regulation. This article aims to fill this gap by addressing whether and to what extent different types of public funding regulation have improved the legitimacy of political parties by improving their image in terms of corruption. Towards this end, and focusing on both European and Latin American democracies, this article investigates whether a relationship indeed exists between the perceived corruption of political parties and the regulation of political finance. It finds such a relationship does exist, although not in the direction commonly stipulated by the advocates of party finance regulation.

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Given the growing importance of state subsidies as a source of party income, several countries have introduced policies that link the provision of party funding to the promotion of gender equality in political representation. Variations in the assignment of public funding—that is, financial incentives and cuts—are increasingly employed to promote equal gender participation in intraparty politics and in public office. However, we know little about why and how these equality promotion policies have been adopted in different countries, how they work in practice, and, most importantly, what effects they have on women's representation. To contribute to this debate, after embedding gender-targeted public funding regulations in the broader set of political representation policies and presenting a comparative overview of existing rules in the European Union, the article concentrates on the Italian case. We examine the evolution of Italian regulation of gender electoral financing and the extent to which the Italian parties have complied with the rules over time. The results show that this set of policy instruments, when poorly designed, is nothing more than symbolic policy. The lack of appropriate mechanisms for sanctions and rewards, which can induce parties to change their behavior, has hampered the effectiveness of these policy measures.

The lack of financial resources is an often-cited hurdle for women pursuing political careers. However, empirical analysis of the dynamics of the private funding of women candidates and its potential implications for their political careers is still scant, particularly for countries outside the anglophone regions. This paper contributes to the scholarly debate by focusing on the gendered patterns in campaign fundraising in Italy, where radical changes to the party funding regime and multiple reforms to the electoral laws may have changed the structure of opportunity for fundraising by women candidates. We analyse patterns of private funding for men and women candidates in four national elections between 1996 and 2018. Our analysis, triangulated with semi-structured interviews with women candidates, shows that differences exist in fundraising patterns between male and female candidates in Italy. It reveals differences in the quality of candidates’ fundraising networks and confirms that political affiliation (to right-wing parties) and incumbency have an effect on the amount of donations received, thus granting women candidates greater access to private donations.