Party Funding and Corruption

This book systematically explores the relationship between party funding and corruption, and addresses fundamental concerns in the continued consideration of how democracy should function. The book analyses whether parties funded primarily through private donations are necessarily more corrupt than those funded by the state, and whether different types of corruption are evident in different funding regimes. Drawing on a comparison of Great Britain and Denmark, the author argues that levels of state subsidy are, in fact, unrelated to the type of corruption found. Subsidies are not a cure for corruption or, importantly, perceived corruption, so if they are to be introduced or sustained, this should be done for other reasons. Subsidies can, for example, be justified on grounds of public utility. Meanwhile, anti-corruption measures should focus on other regulations, but even then we should not expect such measures to impact on perceptions of corruption in the short term.
Sam Power is Lecturer in Corruption Analysis at the University of Sussex, UK. Previously he was Associate Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter and Research Associate at the Sir Bernard Crick Centre for the Public Understanding of Politics, University of Sheffield. Sam has written extensively on issues related to the financing of politics in both academic and non-academic publications and regularly provides expert interviews and analyses on TV, on the radio, and online.