Cartelisation in Post-Communist Politics: State Party Funding in Post-1989 Poland

Abstract

This paper considers the degree to which the new parties in post-communist Poland orientate towards, and are dependent upon, the state for their funding. All the main Polish parties and groupings surveyed believe that the state should play a continuing or greater role in providing them with financial support, and both the level and scope of state funding has been increased and extended since 1989. There is also some evidence pointing to the emergence of a party cartel with state funding provisions that discriminate heavily in favour of those that achieve the greatest electoral success. However, the Polish party system is still too fluid, undeveloped and lacking a stable enough pattern of interactions for a party cartel to have fully emerged. Moreover, the distinction between 'successor' parties with their roots in the communist period and completely 'new' parties is not necessarily as helpful in identifying the varying levels of state-orientation as hypothesised.