https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4698-897X
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ABSTRACT
Political finance is an important aspect of the study of how power is distributed among the organizational faces of political parties: the party on the ground (POG), the party in central office (PCO) and the party in public office (PPO). The end of the state finance era in Italy (between 2013 and 2017) may have affected intra-party relations, moving political actors towards the (re-)discovery of the financial potential of grassroots and volunteer support. This article contributes to the analysis of parties’ resilience since the party finance reform adopted in Italy in 2014. It focuses on the resources activated and used by different political actors seeking new ways to survive since the public financing regime was dismantled between 2013 and 2018. The impact of political financing reform should contribute to reshaping how power is distributed within parties: as the PPO becomes increasingly unimportant in providing financial resources, party organization is moving beyond the cartel party model.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Although Malta and Switzerland have a purely private model of political financing, more than 50% of European countries provide public subsidies to political parties in proportion to their electoral results in the form of reimbursement of political expenses (IDEA: idea.int/political-finance).
2. Official political party reports are published yearly in the Official Gazette. When these were not available (e.g., for the last three years analysed), data were taken from the parties’ official websites. Specific data for the due per mille tax contribution have been taken from the Ministry of the Economy and Finance. (https://www1.finanze.gov.it/finanze3 /2xmille/index.php?tree = 2018AADUEXM0101).
3. The LN’s improved capacity to attract taxpayers should be considered in line with the process of nationalization it underwent during the 2018 electoral campaign. According to the register of political parties (see http://www.parlamento.it/1063), in 2018 there were two political entities related to the old LN: the Lega Nord per l’Indipendenza della Padania (Northern League for the Independence of Padania) and the Lega per Salvini Premier (League for Salvini as Prime Minister). The first exclusively attracted taxpayers from the north of Italy, while the latter tended to have greater national appeal. presents the sum of the amounts for both entities.
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Chiara Fiorelli
Chiara Fiorelli is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Political Sciences of University of Rome – La Sapienza. Her research interest focuses on party organization, party funding, and the connections among political parties and interest groups. Her work has been published in Government & Opposition and the International Political Science Review.