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

Abstract

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.

Political Party Mortality in Established Party Systems: A Hierarchical Competing Risks Approach

“…Moving to characteristics of a party’s institutional environment, access to direct state—campaign and organizational—funding, provided at the national level, is considered a major source of income for sustaining basic party functions (e.g., Casal Bértoa & Spirova, 2017; Nassmacher, 2009). New entrants, in particular, often lack the resources to run professionalized campaigns or to make long-term investments in their organization based on their “internal” resources alone (Lucardie, 2000).…”

Perspectives on political party death: theorizing and testing Downsian and sociological rationales

“…Finally, with some adaptations, our framework can be made useful for understanding party survival and death in countries with less stable party systems such as in Central and Eastern Europe. While the literature has made important advances in explaining the electoral persistence of parties there (Grzymala-Busse, 2006; Tavits, 2013), research on the organizational survival and death of parties has been less prominent (but see Bakke and Sitter, 2015; Casal Bértoa and Spirova, 2017; Obert and Müller, 2017). In line with our Downsian account, Obert and Müller (2017) find that legislative representation reduces the chances of party death, so does access to state funding.…”

“…Second, we control for a party’s access to direct state funding important to maintain basic party functions (e.g. Bakke and Sitter, 2015; Casal Bértoa and Spirova, 2017). We construct a time-variant variable measuring each party’s access to funding in each electoral cycle that it participated in during its lifespan.…”

“…The negative effect, however, is substantively more important and stresses the importance of financial resources for parties’ long-term maintenance (e.g. Casal Bértoa and Spirova, 2017). Finally, a higher district magnitude (i.e.…”

“…Cross-national research on advanced democracies has produced excellent work on new party formation and entry, their electoral, and parliamentary performance as well as government participation (see, for instance, Hug, 2001; Heinisch, 2003; Tavits, 2006; Bolin, 2007; Meguid, 2007; Deschouwer, 2008; McDonnell and Newell, 2011; Spoon, 2011; Akkerman and de Lange, 2012; Biezen and Rashkova, 2014). However, more fundamental questions about the survival of new parties are surprisingly rarely dealt with (but see on old democracies Collignon, 2018; Lowery et al , 2013; Rose and Mackie, 1988; on new democracies Bakke and Sitter, 2015; Deegan-Krause and Haughton, 2015; Cyr, 2016; Casal Bértoa and Spirova, 2017). Drivers of party death and survival shed light on the fundamental question of how we should theorize what political parties are.…”