Assessing the Impact of Campaign Finance on Party System Institutionalization

Abstract

A B S T R A C TThere are numerous advantages to institutionalized party systems; yet the instability in post-communist party systems has been well documented. Thus, it is increasingly important to understand how parties become institutionalized. Scholars have examined various dynamics of campaign finance's effect on politics; however, despite this increased attention, several important theoretical and empirical questions remain. In this article, we investigate campaign finance, institutional, and economic explanations for post-communist party development. We test the impact of campaign finance restrictions and public fund availability on several measures of party institutionalization. The results of our analysis are important for outlining the role of public financing and restrictions on structuring party development.

A Self-interested Legislator? Party Regulation in Italy

“…Research has been particularly concerned to search for evidence of the cartel party thesis proposed by Katz and Mair (1995), investigating the effects of financial support to political parties on patterns of party competition (Scarrow 2006(Scarrow , 2007, party entry (Tavits 2007;van Biezen & Rashkova 2012), party membership (Casas-Zamora 2005; Whiteley 2011), party system change (Pierre, Svåsand & Widfeldt 2000), and institutionalisation (Booth & Robbins 2010). Results have so far revealed little evidence that party regulation, alone, affects party systems, nor have led to any generalisable conclusions (Koss 2008).…”

Party regulation and party politics in post-communist Europe

“…The results in this field have been contradictory, to say the least. Thus, according to some, the introduction of public subsidies has managed to considerably decrease both electoral volatility (Birnir 2005) and fragmentation (Booth and Robbins 2010), 17 increasing the institutionalisation of the party system as a whole . In line with such arguments are other findings that a restrictive regime of public funding, with high eligibility or payout thresholds for state subsidies, serves to maintain the status quo ante, by deterring the formation of the new political forces (Birnir 2005;Spirova 2007) as well as increasing the costs of survival (Casal Bértoa and Spirova 2013).…”

Political finance regimes and party system size: evidence from new and established European democracies

“…Contrary to previous studies (Tavits, 2006(Tavits, , 2008Booth and Robbins, 2010;Rashkova, 2014b), which largely consider whether a specific aspect is present or absent within the financial laws, we look at the content of the regulation and are thus better able to gauge the potential effect that a specific financial regulation may have on the party system. For example, if we simply consider whether public funding exists, and we take for granted the existence of public funding as stimulating for party competition and thus for newcomers, we are likely to come to the wrong conclusions.…”

“…Given the fact that there are ongoing cases of political corruption, financial scandals involving major political actors, and a tremendous rise in the regulation of political finances (Rashkova, forthcoming;van Biezen and Kopecký, 2017), studying the relationship between this specific type of regulationpolitical finance regulationand party system development presents a main point of interest. Building on recent work engaging with this issue (Booth and Robbins, 2010;Gauja, 2010;Potter and Tavits, 2015;van Biezen and Kopecký, 2017;Casal Bértoa, 2017), we try to enrich the study of the relationship between party financing and party system development by focusing on comparing its effects on party systems in different contexts. Our theorizing of the different manners in which party finance affects party competition in new and established democracies complements in an innovative way the results shown by Potter and Tavits (2015).…”