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Political Finance Regimes, Political Corruption and Party System Institutionalization in Southeast Asia

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Political Corruption and Organizational Crime

Abstract

It is a long-standing belief in democracy studies that configurations of well-institutionalized and both moderately polarized and fractionalized party systems promote the effectiveness and efficiency of democratic institutions and thereby contribute to the functioning and legitimacy of the democratic system at large. At the same time, scholars frequently reassert the difficulty of consolidating democracy if political parties and party systems fail to establish a strong institutional linkage with society. The chapter analyses these issues in the context of Southeast Asia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Van Biezen (2012) refers to the incorporation of parties into European constitutions as “party constitutionalization”. For the concept of “negative constitutionalization”, which denotes regulations in constitutional law which treat the presumed negative aspects of party politics and constraint the ability of political parties to play a meaningful role in politics, see Mobrand (2018).

  2. 2.

    For example, Section 45 of the 2018 Thai constitution stipulates: “A person shall enjoy the liberty to unite and form a political party under the democratic regime of government with the King as Head of State, as provided by law. The [party] law shall … prescribe measures to ensure that the administration be carried out independently and free from manipulation or inducement of any person who is not a member of such party, as well as oversight measures to prevent members of a political party from committing any act which violates or contravenes laws relating to election.”

  3. 3.

    In the 15th Congress (2010–2013), political dynasties comprised 70 percent of legislators elected in congressional districts. These members of vested political families possessed higher net worth and won elections by larger margins compared to non-dynastic members of Congress (Mendoza et al., 2012).

  4. 4.

    The total population of East Timor is less than 1.3 million. Other parties also report impressive membership statistics (Ryan, 2007), but these are impossible to verify.

  5. 5.

    For exceptions see Ufen and Mietzner (2015); Sachsenröder (2019a, b).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Politische Wissenschaft, Universität Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Aurel Croissant

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  1. Aurel Croissant
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  1. Heidelberg, Germany

    Elizangela Valarini

  2. Neckargemünd, Germany

    Markus Pohlmann

  3. Heidelberg, Germany

    Subrata Mitra

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Croissant, A. (2021). Political Finance Regimes, Political Corruption and Party System Institutionalization in Southeast Asia. In: Valarini, E., Pohlmann, M., Mitra, S. (eds) Political Corruption and Organizational Crime. Organization, Management and Crime - Organisation, Management und Kriminalität. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-34374-3_4

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