Abstract
This book responds to a long-running British debate on whether introducing significant subsidies for political parties is the right remedy for popular disaffection with politics and politicians. In the European context, this is a peculiarly British question, in that most European democracies long ago adopted such subsidies (as the book’s Figure 2.1 shows). Nevertheless, the question is germane because subsidies are less universal outside Europe. Moreover, there is no guarantee that countries will retain subsidies once they adopt them. Canada’s 2015 termination of some of its party subsidies offers a cautionary tale for those who assume that trends towards public subsidization of politics inevitably go in one direction only. Thus, the research reported here contributes to the important endeavour of understanding how party funding policies shape policy outcomes, including perceptions of politics.
The argument for political subsidies as a cure for distrust of political parties is that political parties’ reliance on wealthy donors (individuals, businesses, and/or trade unions) generates this distrust, creating the perception of ‘pay-to-play’ politics. According to this logic, distrust can be mitigated if parties become less dependent on large donors. As long as campaign costs remain high, the only way for them to do this is to find alternative funding sources. Public subsidies are a desirable solution because they are the ‘cleanest’ form of funding for parties.
Party Funding and Corruption probes the logic of the argument. It starts with two basic premises. First, it agrees with other scholars who reject attempts to objectively measure levels of corruption. Its plausible definition of political corruption focusses on how such acts are perceived, rather than on illegality per se, calling it ‘the misappropriation of party funding for political or private gain, in such a way that it subverts accepted democratic processes, institutions and norms’ (p.20). Second, it posits that students of corruption should be concerned about different types of corruption, not just different levels. The study’s central question is thus: ‘Does the amount of state subsidization in a country have an effect on the type of corruption that occurs?’ (p.9).
In engaging this question, the study focusses on two types of corruption. The first, donor-based corruption, is quid-pro-quo political finance. The second, co-functioning corruption, occurs when politicians act to cultivate relationships that may benefit them after they leave public office, such as future jobs. The study posits that donor-based corruption will be the dominant form of corruption in countries where parties depend on donors for at least half of their revenues; it posits that co-functioning corruption will be the most common type of corruption where parties get at least half of their funds from state subsidies. Left un-explained in the framing of these hypotheses is whether the second effect is thought to occur because party subsidies increase co-functioning corruption, or because co-functioning corruption becomes relatively more prominent (more perceived) when there are fewer opportunities for donor-based corruption.
To probe the plausibility of these hypotheses, the book presents in-depth studies of political finance and corruption in contemporary Denmark and the United Kingdom. These cases are chosen in a ‘most-similar-systems’ design where the key variation is that party subsidies are much higher in Denmark in both absolute and relative terms. Power tests his expectations by considering survey evidence and party accounts, and by interviewing politicians in each country to probe their understanding of why donors give, and what donors want – or get – in return. The book also includes interesting and readable (but only tangentially related) historical chapters describing the evolution of the political finance chapters in each country. The study’s findings only partially confirm the hypotheses. As expected, in the UK the primary perceived form of corruption is donor-based. However, contrary to predictions, this is also the primary perceived form of corruption in Denmark. While two cases alone cannot rule out (or, indeed, confirm) any set of hypotheses, these cases provide no support for the idea that different levels of party subsidies lead to different types of corrupt behaviour. Thus, in essence this book offers a long journey to a null finding.
Nevertheless, the journey is not in vain because it offers some interesting insights along the way, including ones that may stimulate future research. For instance, in keeping with its origins as a dissertation, the book provides a helpful review of literature on corruption and party funding. The study also provides evidence of the disjuncture between objective behavioural measures and perception measures of corruption, arguing that British citizens seemingly over-estimate the degree of influence that donors wield, whereas Danish citizens seem surprisingly un-concerned by the (objectively low) degree of transparency in Danish political finance. As the study concludes, such disjuncture raises the question of whether any political finance policies could remedy citizens’ perceptions about party corruption, or whether the root of the malady lies elsewhere, and therefore needs to be addressed with other tools. This does not mean that there are no valid arguments in favour of public subsidies. However, the book’s timely warning is that if corruption, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, then it would be naïve to expect that public discourse about corruption will necessarily respond to objective changes in how party funding works.