1. The Selection of Countries
The countries included in the database are selected from those that were categorized as “free” or “partly free” in Adrian Karatnycky and Aili Piano (eds). Freedom in the World: The Annual Survey of Political Rights and Civil Liberties, 2001–2002. New York: Freedom House, 2002. The selection has been made to focus the study on countries where political finance is likely to have an impact on relatively democratic elections. Questionnaires were sent out with the aim to cover as many as possible of the 144 countries. Independent researchers, regional and national organizations, and electoral management bodies were mobilized and a complete mapping of the political party finance laws and regulations was carried out in 111 countries. Additional research was done into the public finance laws of the countries not covered by the first round of research.
Political finance laws and regulations are frequently changed and new laws are enacted, and this leads to difficulties in carrying out studies of this kind. For this database we have chosen not to include, for example, Indonesia and Côte d’Ivoire, where the current laws are before the Parliament for large-scale amendment at the time of writing, or East Timor, where UN regulations will be completely replaced by the new Parliament.
2. Areas of Research and Limitations
The database includes research into the areas of regulatory system, enforcing body, disclosure of and ceilings on income, bans on particular types of donations, disclosure of and ceilings on expenditure, direct public funding and indirect public funding. It is important to stress that this research concerns only the letter of the laws and regulations. As the chapter on Monitoring, Control and Enforcement points out, there are many laws that are enacted but for different reasons never enforced.
The questionnaire used for the study was mainly inspired by the political finance section of EPIC (the Election Process Information Collection project), available on www.epicproject.org, and on the research conducted for Pilar del Castillo and Daniel Zovatto (eds). La Financiación de la Política en Iberoamérica, San José: Iberoamerican Institute of Human Rights, 1998.
To limit the scope of the research, International IDEA has decided to restrict the current project to political party finance, even if many countries have legislation that is focused on candidates rather than parties. This means that a “No” in answer to the question of public funding of political parties in a country does not necessarily mean that candidates cannot receive public funding. The research is also limited to legislation at a national/federal level, and does not take into account the different provisions that might exist on other levels of government.
3. Sources of the Matrix database
The tables in the database are based on primary sources (original laws and regulations) where these were available to the research team. Provisions relating to the financing of parties are sometimes found not in the electoral legislation but in other laws. This can make it difficult to find all the legal provisions regulating political finance. Some may be found in tax laws, special laws governing the operation of political parties, or laws related to the media, private companies, trade unions or other bodies. To complicate matters further, the provisions may be found in laws, decrees, subsidiary legislation or regulations and it is not seldom for them to be contradictory.
Where primary sources were not available to us, or where interpretation has been necessary, we have relied on experts from academia and from the agencies which monitor and enforce the political finance laws in the different countries. The shortcomings of this method are related to the problem of the variety of laws that regulate the operations of political parties. One enforcement agency may not be aware of all parts of the legislation that relate to political finance. As an example, the electoral management body may not be aware of the tax relief that donors to political parties may get through the tax authorities. In a few cases – mainly for the International IDEA Map on Public Funding in the World – secondary sources have been used.
Without the help of the many researchers, this study would never have been possible. However, there may as a result be differences in judgement. This, together with the difficulties related to sources mentioned above, means that the information in the database is subject to error and should be treated with caution. Even with this qualification, the database is still to our knowledge the most comprehensive attempt to date to list information related to political finance laws and regulations.
For a complete list of sources per country, click here.
4. International Dollars
A database on political finance throughout the world by definition includes many figures in different currencies. In order to make the data more readily comparable internationally, conversions to international dollars have been made using purchasing power parity-based conversion rates (PPP rates) for all countries except Bosnia and Herzegovina and Andorra. Often when comparisons are made a common accounting unit is used, usually the US dollar (USD). The problem with those kinds of conversion is that they reflect neither the relative price levels in different countries nor changes in relative prices. This means that the conversions are inconsistent both over time and in their estimates of income levels. Instead, we have chosen to use a conversion rate that reflects how much local money is/was worth within the particular country during a specific year. By using purchasing power equivalence, where one International Dollar (Int’l $) purchases the same amount of goods and services in all countries, Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) conversions allow comparisons both between countries and over time (www.worldbank.org/data/icp). This means that the same sum in a local currency may be worth different amounts of International Dollars depending on the year discussed. The conversion rates are based on the price levels in the United States, which means that during the year in which the conversions are done (2002 in this Handbook), one USD equals one International Dollar. Where this is the case, we have chosen not to insert the conversion rates. For further reading on the use of PPP conversion rates, see the SIPRI Yearbook 1999: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, Appendix 7C:327–333. There is also an extensive discussion of the methodology of PPP conversion rates in Irving B. Kravis. A System of International Comparison of Gross Product and Purchasing Power/Produced by the Statistical Office of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Comparison Unit of the University of Pennsylvania. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975. The source of the PPP conversion rates is World Development Indicators 2002. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002. IDEA is indebted to Petter Stålenheim for providing advice and for carrying out the conversions.
