Accounting for organisation and financing. A comparison of four Hungarian Parties

Abstract

This article analyses the financial and organisational profile of the major Hungarian political parties. The question investigated is whether the structure of income and expenditure and the organisational make-up of parties are related to each other, and whether these patterns are compatible with the general rules of party finance, the ideology and power position of the parties, as well as general political development. The analysis of the empirical data finds a correspondence between the regulation of party finance and the generally high level of party centralisation. The structure of expenditure was found to be most closely related to party size, but size did not explain the ratio of donations. As expected, conservative parties tended to have a small membership and were more dependent on their leaders. However, the role of members, donations and membership fees, and the status of MPs within the party hierarchy were not well predicted by membership in party families. The exact distribution of power within the organisations, and the ratio between the various sources of income and targets of expenditure seem to depend more on the individual trajectories of parties as organisations than on any of the general classificatory schemes.