Political Party Funding: an International Comparison

The aim of this thesis is to identify significant weaknesses of political party funding system in the Czech Republic, and to suggest possible improvements of the system. Knowledge acquired in the first part of the thesis, which deals with the theoretical basis of political party funding, is used to analyse the applicable legislation. This part of the thesis first of all describes the legal framework of political parties, the principles and goals of political party funding, and possible approaches to the funding; the most space is devoted to one of the possible approaches, regulatory measures, which is divided on the basis of supply side (state a private funding) and demand side (mainly campaign spending regulation). The Czech legislation is not only analysed in general and using the theoretical basis, but is also compared with the system adopted by the Federal Republic of Germany. The hypothesis is that the German law is a good example for the Czech Republic in the field of party financing, for the Federal Republic of Germany has been a developed democratic state of law for a longer uninterrupted period of time, and was one of the first countries in the world to introduce state funding of political parties. The second part of the thesis describes, analyses and compares the applicable legislation of the..