Politinės partijos Lietuvoje: rinkimai, lyderiai ir finansavimas
LTŠi mokslo studija aptaria du su politinių partijų veikla susijusius aspektus – Lietuvos politinių partijų lyderių atrankos procesą ir svarbiausius jį įtakojančius veiksnius bei Lietuvos politinių partijų finansavimo modelius, jų kaitą ir svarbą politinėms partijoms. Tyrimą sudaro kelios dalys. Pirma, aptariama rinkimų sistema ir detalūs 2004-2020 m. Seimo rinkimų rezultatai, kurie padeda įžvelgti makro-tendencijas rinkėjų tarpe bei nustatyti svarbias politines partijas ir partinę sistemą Lietuvoje. Vėliau pristatomi teoriniai partijų lyderių atrankos ir partijų finansavimo modeliai bei sistemos. Jais remiantis, išanalizuojami pasirinkti dviejų Lietuvos politinių partijų atvejai ir politinių partijų finansavimo kaita, pateikiamos įžvalgos apie galimas jos pasekmes politinių partijų konkurencijai ir organizacijai. Knyga skiriama politikos mokslų studentams, akademinei bendruomenei, besidominčiai Lietuvos politinėmis partijomis, lyderyste ir politiniu finansavimu bei politikams. [Leidėjo anotacija]
ENPolitical parties, like free elections, free media, the rule of law, human rights and civil society, are a fundamental part of democracy. Parties bring society and state institutions together by selecting and representing different interests in society in order to gain power through democratic and competitive elections. Once in power, parties pursue their objectives on the basis of an ideological platform and the electoral platform that usually derives from it. Parties are characterised by the selection and socialisation ofthe ruling elite, i. e. familiarisation with the formal and informal rules, processes and roles of politics. They perform the function of political education of the public by presenting their views on politics and solutions to its problems. Political parties also act as ‘lightning rods’, releasing the political-emotional charge that has built up in society at election time and offering policy, i. e. governance solutions (Ware 1996). Finally, political parties represent long or short-term conflicts and problems in society. All political parties need leaders and funding to fulfil the above functions. The purpose ofthis study is twofold. It aims to analyse how the leaders ofselected Lithuanian political parties are selected, what determines this selection, and what aspects of political party financing affect not only competition between parties, but also their relations with civil society. This will contribute to a better understanding of the internal organisational elements of political parties operating in Lithuania that characterise their political behaviour in a democracy. The objectives ofthe study are: 1) to discuss the context of the parties’ activities (electoral rules, electoral audits), 2) to present theoretical assumptions about the election of party leaders for empirical analysis.3) to examine the election of party leaders in two case studies - the Party of Order and Justice (PTT) and the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP) - and to determine the relevance of the study to the theoretical arguments, and 4) to provide an overview ofthe internal organisational elements of political parties operating in Lithuania, 4) to provide an overview of the models of political financing; 5) to analyse the changes in the model of political financing in Lithuania, focusing on the changes in the rules, sources of financing for political parties and their share in the party budgets; 6) to discuss the possible implications ofthe changes in the models of political financing for the development of parties and the party system. The election of party leaders in Lithuania has not been widely analysed. Giedrius Žvaliauskas (2007) found a link between competitiveness in the election ofthe party leader and the degree of democratisation of the party. Vitalija Simonaitytė (2014, 2018) analysed personalised party leadership in Lithuania and found that competitive internal elections of the party chairman enabled the emergence of new political leaders. It finds that established parties tend to change their leaders, and that autocratic decisions are difficult to accept in well-organised parties with a large membership and party representation in government institutions. The parties selected for the case studies have also not had their leadership issues examined in depth. Regarding the Party of Order and Justice, Ainė Ramonaitė and Vesta Ratkevičiūtė (2013) describe the PTT as the most prominent far-right and anti-elitist populist party in the early 21st century. Daunis Auers (2017) studied the case of Rolandas Paksas, the PTT s long-time chairman, as a political pariah, and the same authors study (2018) examined the relationship between the influence of populist parties (and the PTT) and their institutionalisation.Algis Krupavičius (2013) described the political organisation of the LSDP. Maciej Hartliński, Małgorzata Sikora-Gaca and Dominika Mikucka-Wójtowicz (2015) compared the socio-demographic characteristics of party leaders and the rise of party leaders in Central Europe and the Baltic States. Giedrius Žvaliauskas (2017) looked at changes in the LSDP elite between 2001 and 2015. Alison F. Smith (2020) also examined the role of LSDP members in political campaigns, while Liutauras Gudžinskas (2020) used an organisational approach to explain the different electoral results ofsocial democratic parties in the Baltic States. Research on political finance in Lithuania is also scarce and incomplete. Most ofthe previous studies were conducted by lawyers and political scientists well over a decade ago and focused on one aspect of political finance in Lithuania. Vaidas Jurkevičius (2008) assessed the mixed model of party financing in the Lithuanian legal system at that time and its contribution to ensuring the transparency of party financing. Elena Masnevaitė (2008, 2009) analysed the legal regulation of party financing. In 2008, she analysed which entities are entitled to finance Lithuanian political parties and in what forms, and how this affects their independence. In 2009, she discussed the state financing of political parties in Lithuania, pointing out the shortcomings of the new financing model. Later, in 2011, the researcher delved deeper into the financing of parliamentary activities as a form ofindirect state funding ofpolitical parties, highlighting certain problematic aspects. Ingrida Unikaitė-Jakuntavičienė (2008) analysed the regulation ofpolitical financing in Lithuania as a tool ofpolitical manipulation, focusing on changes in the regulation of party and campaign financing initiated by various ruling political parties in order to achieve potentially advantageous results. [...]. [From the publication]
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