Direct public funding of political parties: Between proxy measures and hard data

This article presents an original dataset of direct public funding (DPF) political parties across 27 post-communist regimes from the outset transition until 2020. It represents first systematic, and detailed account actual level DPF provided to outside established democracies in terms geographical temporal coverage. The has a panel format includes information on per registered voter cast ballot separately aggregate for more than 800 country-year observations 200 election campaigns. analysis unveils substantial cross-national within-country variation DPF, as well between statutory financing. Despite increasing reliance state, no pattern exists regarding dynamics access distribution rules. also highlights limitations risks entailed by extensive use various proxies such dichotomous indicators, composite regulatory indexes, or perception-based measures that do not capture either other dimensions financing regime.