One of the candidates for the position of mayor is Oslo, Fabian Stang, has stated that political parties should not be allowed to accept donations, as this can easily be perceived as corruption, or at best as lobbyism. This statement is motivated by the controversy surrounding the close ties between the Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) and the major worker's union (LO) as well as the capital flow towards the political branch. Stang, who is a conservative (Høyre) does not bring any accusations of corruption, but rather focuses on the fact that this practice doesn't exactly politician credibility, especially considering the upcoming election.
When I first saw this, I strongly agreed with Stang, but as I thought about it, it occurred to me that I was missing some vital information. My motivation for agreeing was the somewhat idealistic notion that it shouldn't be possible to buy political power, and that still stands. It's also a fact that the biggest party in Norway, Arbeiderpartiet, receives a lot of money from LO, in exchange for political influence. This is of course bad, but I'm not so naïve as to suggest that this doesn't occur in other parties. The important question here is whether there is a strong, positive correlation between the size of the donations and the electoral results (and resulting number of seats in the parlament) for each party. In other words - if we rank the size of the external donations to each party, how does that compare to the size (i.e. number of seats) of the parties? THAT would be extremely interesting to know, and seeing as how these are supposed to be public records, it shouldn't be a problem to perform such a study. If pooled over the last 20 or so years, this would be a great way to determine the effect of money spent on electoral results in Norway. If there is a strong correlation between money donations and electoral votes, money gifts should of course be prohibited. However; if the opposite is true, then there is no reason to interfere.
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5 comments:
A law with a limited amount of money received by each party would be great I guess.
Well, seats are one thing, as there is power in number. However, an even more interesting is to check out whether a donaction has made a party change their view/ votes on specific cases.
I agree with y'all. Anders: I guess thing I've just gone ahead and taken for granted is that there's no such thing as a free lunch, and corporations, unions and such don't donate money unless they get something back. So the fact that they get external funding is, at least for me, a clear indication that the donors are getting their money's worth.
That being said; I don't know of any more serious case than the interrelation between Arbeiderpartiet and LO, seeing as how LO has members in AP's governing body. I'm sure that NHO provides Høyre with a truckload of cash, but I've never heard that NHO has actual appointed positions within the party. And with all the crap flying around after the AP/LO entanglement, I'm pretty sure that the socialists would've dug it up and exposed it if it existed.
I'm not naive, and I totally agree with you there, W-master. But there is a slight difference in donating cash to a party that shares your values and paying a party to change their values according to your wishes. (Or like in the AP/LO case: Agree on your values before even getting the money...). It would be fun to see if there were any "overnight" dramatic changes in voting for a party that has received substantial donations.
But there is a slight difference in donating cash to a party that shares your values and paying a party to change their values according to your wishes.
Granted - the question is whether it's possible for a third party to notice the difference.
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