Beyond the Scandals? Party Funding and the 2005 German Elections

Abstract

More than five years after the CDU funding scandals broke, and more than a decade after the major party finance reforms of 1994, were the parties' financial positions any different ahead of the 2005 elections than they had been a decade earlier? This article investigates this question, looking particularly at the parties' ability to increase their non-subsidy revenues. As it shows, the campaign of 2005 seemed to confirm that the parties may be caught between pressures for higher spending and the apparent inflexibility of their revenue sources.

Notes

1. For instance, K.-H. Nassmacher 1989; C. Landfried, Parteifinanzen und politische Macht, 2nd ed. (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994); H. H. von Arnim, Die Partei, der Abgeordnete und das Geld (Mainz: von Hase und Koehler, 1991); T. Poguntke, ‘Parties in a Legalistic Culture: The Case of Germany’, in Richard Katz and Peter Mair (eds.), How Parties Organize (London: Sage, 1994), pp.185–215.

2. A. Beyerlein, ‘Linkspartei: 320 000 Euro für den Wahlkampf’, Berliner Zeitung, 17 September 2005, p.32; H. Pehle, ‘Bundestagswahlen – ein fairer Wettbewerb?’ in Eckhard Jesse and Roland Sturm (eds.), Bilanz der Bundestagswahl 2005 (Munich: Bayerische Landeszentrale für politische Bildungsarbeit, 2006), pp.295–306; ‘Kurzer Wahlkampf’, Der Spiegel, July 30 2005 (accessed through Spiegel Online).

3. S. Scarrow, ‘Explaining Political Finance Reforms: Competition and Context’, Party Politics 6 (2004), pp.653–6.

4. S. Scarrow, ‘Politicians Against Parties: Anti-Party Arguments as Weapons of Change in Germany’, European Journal of Political Research 29 (2006), pp.297–317.

5. A summary is given in C. Landfried, ‘Parteienfinanzierung: Das Urteil des Bundesverfassungsgerichts vom 9. April 1992’, Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen 23 (1992), pp.439–47.

6. Pehle, ‘Bundestagswahlen’, pp.303–4.

7. P. Lösche, ‘Problems of Party and Campaign Financing in Germany and the United States – Some Comparative Reflections’, in A. Gunlicks (ed.), Campaign and Party Finance in North America and Western Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993), p.222.

8. P. Kulitz, Unternehmerspenden an politische Parteien (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1983), p.141.

9. ‘Schrumpfende Partei’, Der Spiegel, 6 Dec. 2004 (accessed through Spiegel Online).

10. C. Landfried, Parteifinanzen.

11. Most of these revisions were adopted in response to loopholes revealed by various financing scandals.

12. See A. Gunlicks, ‘Campaign and Party Finance in the West German “Party State”’, The Review of Politics 50 (1988), pp.30–48.

13. But because figures for 2005 will not be available until mid 2007, it is not yet possible to examine the full 2002–2005 electoral period.

14. This change in reporting requirements was the rather counter-intuitive result of an expert committee's recommendation that parties should stop collecting contributions from officeholders. Instead of stopping this practice, the parties merely obscured it by eliminating it as a separate reporting category.

15. Landfried, Parteifinanzen, p.97.

16. A. Roemmele, ‘Parteispenden in der Krise?’, Aus Politk und Zeitgeschichte 16 (2000), http:www.bpb.de/pulibikationen/GBES28.html.

17. Landfried, Parteifinanzen, p.132.

18. Kulitz, Unternehmerspenden, p.89.

19. These figures do not include a large transfer of funds from the CSU to the CDU, its campaign partner.

20. S. Mersch, ‘Union bleibt Spendenweltmeister’, Die Tageszeitung, 14 Sept. (online edition).

21. S. Scarrow, ‘Money, Politics, and the Balance of Power: Comparing Official Stories’, paper prepared for the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, 31 Aug.–3 Sept.

22. Roemmele, ‘Parteispenden’.

23. This point was also made by Roemmele, ‘Parteispenden’.