Paradoxes of the public purse : how and why West European democracies introduced public funding for political parties (1945-2021)

Abstract

The present doctoral dissertation consists in a comprehensive historical-institutionalist study of the development and regulation of subsidies to political parties across the six founding Member States of the European Union. The work explores the gradual evolution of political funding systems in a Rokkanian fashion, examining the origins of political parties, their long-term historical development, and the emergence of public political subsidies and party regulation over the post-war epoch. By means of extensive archival research and the painstaking analysis of the causative mechanisms at play, the dissertation faithfully reconstructs the ins and outs of this fascinating sixfold reform process. The work notably illustrates how Germany was driven toward reform by its powerful Constitutional Court, how Italy, France and Belgium were most heavily influenced by the pernicious effects of deeply engrained political-financial corruption, and how the emergence of a true West European consensus (as contained in successive GRECO evaluations) finally drove the Netherlands and Luxembourg towards convergence with earlier reformers. The dissertation concludes by assessing the six evolutionary processes within the theoretical context of evolving party types and party systems, arguing that, in spite of significant internal differences in cost and regulatory content, each case clearly shows a propensity towards the cartelisation of political parties as described by Katz and Mair. It is further argued that the cartel party is currently in the process of evolving towards a new party type: the systemic party. The latter might best be described as a functionally autonomous self-regulating state-owned enterprise which disposes of a protected status under public law, holds a monopoly on certain vital public legal functions, and can count on state aid whenever the system’s collective survival is at stake. The consolidation of such a model would likely lead to a political system in which the major parties become ever-more auto-referential top-down organisations with little to no real attachment to the electorate beyond brief propaganda drives during electoral periods, representing different political viewpoints in much the same way commercial advertising represents different tastes. At a time when anti-politics and extremism are on the rise across the Western world, it may be hoped that future reforms aimed at greater popular involvement in politics will allow these trends to be mitigated.