A review essay on books by (1) Jose Alvarez-Junco, The Emergence of Mass Politics in Spain: Populist Demagoguery and Republican Culture, 1890-1910 (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2002); (2) Nigel Townson, The Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Centrist Politics under the Second Republic, 1931-1936 (Brighton: Sussex Academic, 2000); & (3) Luis Moreno, The Federalization of Spain (London & Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 2001). 8 References.
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.
A review essay on books edited by (1) P. Nikiforos Diamandouros & Richard Gunther, Parties, Politics, and Democracy in the New Southern Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U Press, 2001); (2) Larry Diamond & Richard Gunther, Political Parties and Democracy (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U Press, 2001); & (3) Richard Gunther, Jose Ramon Montero, & Juan J. Linz, Political Parties: Old Concepts and New Challenges (Oxford, UK: Oxford U Press, 2002).
This paper focuses on the relationship between the party central office and the party in public office in the relatively new democracies of Southern and East Central Europe. The analysis reveals that, although the party executives are strongly invaded by public office holders, it is, contrary to expectations, not the party in public office but the party central office that emerges as the most predominant of the two faces. It appears that party organizations in these new democracies are largely controlled from a small centre of power, located at the intersection of the extra-parliamentary organization and the party in public office. This phenomenon, it is argued, can probably be best explained as a device to increase party cohesion and to reduce the potentially destabilizing consequences that emerge from a context of weakly developed party loyalties and a general lack of party institutionalization.
In the relatively young democracies of Spain and Portugal, public funding plays a critical role in the financing of political parties, which generally lack the organizational capacity to generate their own income. The rules and practice of party financing show that, in addition to the overall heavy dependence on the state, by far the greatest part of the public money is assigned to the party central office. In this sense, they contradict the West European tendency, where it is the party in public office that has become the more privileged face of the party organization in recent times.
