Does Party Regulation in Europe Create a Level Playing Field?
19 Pages Posted: 22 May 2014 Last revised: 19 Sep 2014
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
The number and extent of laws regulating political parties and their work has been increasing across Western democracies over the past decades. The major objective of party laws is to create ‘equitable, free, and fair’ (Norris, 2004) competition amongst parties in which the popularity of policy proposal matter most for electoral outcomes. This paper investigates the extent to which party laws and party finance laws accomplish creating a level playing field amongst party organisations. It analyses party organisational data of 47 parties in six European countries between 1960 and 2010. The findings indicate that party law is not as effective as party finance law. The introduction of party finance in Denmark and the Netherlands were most effective in encouraging financial convergence amongst parties and thus more equal opportunities.
Keywords: party regulation, party organisation, level playing field, time-series analysis, Europe
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