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State Funding and Intra-Party Dynamics

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State Funding and Intra-Party Dynamics State Funding and Intra-Party Dynamics: Exploring the Impact of State Funding on Staffing, Centralisation, and Electoral Participation in New Minor Parties in Norway and Italy Volume I of II Submitted by Torill Stavenes to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Politics in September 2018 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature ……………………………………………… 1 This page is intentionally left blank 2 Abstract State funding is currently provided to parties in most first and second wave democracies. For European political parties, state funding has come to constitute a majority of their income. Existing studies have found that state funding is linked with staffing, shifting structures of intra-party power (centralisation), and continued pursuit of constitutive function, i.e. electoral participation (survival). However, the results are far from unequivocal. In consequence, we have only a limited understanding of the ways in which state funds shape contemporary parties, and in particular, the extent to which state funding fosters or hinders the performance of political parties’ crucial linkage function between citizens and the state. This thesis addresses this limitation, by analysing the impact of state funding in parties where this impact is most likely to manifest itself, namely in newly established (post-1980) and electorally minor parties (with less than 10 percent of the vote). The central research question is: How does state funding influence processes of staffing, centralisation, and pursuit of constitutive function (electoral participation) in newly established, electorally minor parties? State funding is defined as state benefits, comprising direct (e.g. annual grants), and indirect (e.g. party tax) state funds, and state constraints, comprising criteria related to access to and maintenance of state benefits. Staffing is defined as shifts to a party’s number of staff, while centralisation refers to the process in which elites increase their share of seats in the (national) executive council at the expense of members. Pursuit of constitutive function (electoral participation) is defined as surpassing Pedersen’s (1982) threshold of authorisation, i.e. exceeding ballot access requirements and presenting an electoral list. The thesis develops three hypotheses to guide the empirical analysis. Firstly, I argue that an increase in state funding sparks hiring processes (H1). Secondly, I argue that state funds and staff strengthen party elites, in turn enabling them to initiate and execute centralising reforms (H2). Finally, H3 contends that state funding and staff contribute to new minor parties’ pursuit of constitutive function by facilitating their compliance with ballot access requirements and their presentation of an electoral list. A comparative case design is adopted to empirically explore H1, H2, and H3. The comparison takes place both across the 14 selected new minor parties in Norway and Italy, and within these parties, as the exploration of staffing, centralisation, and pursuit of constitutive function take place by means of analyses of individual party life cycles. A range of primary documents, 61 interviews, and secondary sources are used to analyse the research question. The main conclusion from the in-depth, exploratory analysis is that state funds do indeed shape new minor parties’ staffing patterns, supporting H1. In a similar vein, state funds and staff strengthen elites, in turn enabling them to initiate centralising reforms, and – in some instances – state funds and staff contribute to execute centralising reforms, thus supporting H2. Finally, state funds and staff broadly contribute to new minor parties’ ability to exceed ballot access requirements and present an electoral list in both Norwegian and Italian new minor parties, in line with H3. 3 Acknowledgements Many institutions and individuals have, throughout my three years as a PhD student at the University of Exeter, in one way or another, contributed to the completion of this thesis. I am deeply grateful to them all. Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. Nicole Bolleyer, for her detailed and very insightful comments on my work. I have greatly benefitted from her frequent feedback on (often very long) chapter drafts and other material. I would also like to thank her for interesting collaborative efforts as a member of her research project, Regulating Civil Society, which I have been very lucky to be part of. Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Patricia Correa Vila, another member of the aforementioned research project, who several times commented on my chapter drafts and material. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Gabriel Katz for his comments on my work in Cake for Comments Seminars at the University of Exeter. Finally, I wish to express my thanks to Prof. Elin Haugsgjerd Allern at the University of Oslo, my former MA- supervisor, for prompting my interest in political parties, encouraging me to pursue a PhD, and for being a constant source of support over these past three years. My research leading to this PhD thesis has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–13)/ERC grant agreement 335890 STATORG). This support is gratefully acknowledged. This thesis could never (!) have been written without the participation and goodwill of a range of party representatives in the 14 studied new minor parties. I am deeply grateful to them all. A few of them went out of their way to help me with my data collection (e.g. tracking down documents stored in old lofts). For these efforts, I am eternally grateful. I would also like to thank Trine Berg Kopperud, in the Storting’s archive in Oslo, and the Biblioteca della Camera dei deputati, for (several times) helping me with my queries. I also wish to thank Piero Ignazi, Lars Svåsand, Vincenzo Emanuele, Jo Saglie, and Carlo Baccetti for input concerning data collection. Throughout the past three years, I have been lucky to be a visiting scholar at three different institutions. I wish to thank Prof. Leonardo Morlino at the LUISS in Rome, who kindly hosted me during my fieldwork in Rome in November 2016, Prof. Elin Haugsgjerd Allern who hosted me as a visiting scholar from September 2017 to March 2018 at the University of Oslo, and finally Dr. Jo Saglie, who has been my host at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo from March 2018 until submission in September, 2018. The research stays have given me access to excellent (and immensely helpful) library facilities, and have allowed me to meet a large group of colleagues, whose company and support have made my everyday life both academically stimulating and fun. Thank you! Then I wish to thank colleagues who have participated in various workshops and conferences, whose input and ideas have greatly contributed to 4 my thesis. Special thanks go to the participants at the ECPR Summer School on Political Parties (Nottingham, 2016), the participants at the Comparative Institutions and Regimes Seminar at the University of Oslo (December 2017) (and Prof. Knut Heidar), the CeMAP Cake for Comments seminar at the University of Exeter (March 2018) and the Politics Seminar at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo (April 2018). In the final, intense period before submission, I was lucky to rely on the help of friends and colleagues in Exeter’s PhD-community. Jack Griffiths proofread my thesis, and I thank him for his excellent and prompt input on the final draft. His eye for detail was extraordinary! I also wish to thank Felix C. F. von Nostitz, who – in a truly collegial spirit – offered to read parts of the thesis, and subsequently went on to do just that. His feedback on the comparative discussions at the end of the three main empirical chapters was very helpful. To my dear friends; in Hardanger, Bergen, Sogn, Oslo, and Exeter: Thanks for your great enthusiasm, the laughs, the long talks, and for your die-hard belief in my ability to finish this PhD. Special thanks to the PhD-community in Exeter, for providing welcome breaks from work (oh, the lovely Friday Drinks!). My friend Milka deserves special praise: We started our PhDs in Exeter at the same time, and I have been very lucky to have her as my partner in crime throughout this whole process. I thank her for the inspiration and for the immense support, both professional and unprofessional, over the past three years. Many, many thanks go to my very dear family; my mother and father and two sisters, who never once (!) throughout my many years as a student failed to provide heartfelt encouragement and support. Gratitude also goes to my extended family – near and far. A very special thanks goes to my 2 year old nephew Viktor, whose company – although he himself has been completely oblivious of it – was an exceptionally effective distraction from my PhD-related worries. To my husband, friend, anchor, and everything: Tore. Thank you. Thank you for the enthusiasm, the love, the never ending support, the patience, the (four/five/six/seven course) dinners, and the travels. My love, I have no idea what I would have done without you. I can’t wait to just take off and travel the world with you! 5 Table of contents 1 Introduction....................................................................................... 13 1.1 Puzzle and research question ............................................................................................... 13 1.2 State funding from a normative perspective .......................................................................... 19 1.3 Closing gaps in the existing literature: A literature review ...................................................
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