State Resources and Pocket Money : Shortcuts for Party Funding in Romania

This paper is the first systematic attempt to map the evolution of legal regulations concerning campaign finance in post-communist Romania and to link them with corruption practices parties have been engaged in, over the last decade. Our document analysis reveals a general increase in the complexity of the legal framework regulating campaign spending with a positive impact on reducing corruption. Still, many flaws remain which have been intensely exploited by the political parties. Using empirical data, we make an attempt to illustrate the different ways in which the Romanian parties have developed tools to indirectly obtain (and use) state resources for their own electoral purposes. These practices include: partisan tailored transfers of money from the government to own constituencies prior to elections; relying on large-scale patronage to reward party sponsors and activists; as well as making state agencies contribute indirectly to campaign funds under the guise of innocent workshops