Political Parties as Public Utilities

Abstract

The exceptional relevance of the state in party finance in contemporary European democracies is not only of particular importance for the way in which parties organize, but also has a bearing on the normative connotations associated with the place of political parties in modern democracy. The contention of this article is that the increasingly prominent role of the state in the funding of parties should be understood in the context of, and has been legitimized by, an ideational transformation by which parties have gradually come to be seen as necessary and desirable institutions for democracy. Moreover, the direct involvement of the state in internal party affairs has contributed to a transformation of parties from the traditionally voluntary private associations towards parties as public utilities. A comparison of the practice of public funding and public control on party finance in the older liberal democracies with more recent cases of democratization shows that the newer European democracies in particular provide unequivocal testimony of such a new conception of parties and democracy.