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Democracy, Corruption and Political Consumerism

Publication at Faculty of Social Sciences |
2012

Abstract

The new democracies in transition post-communist countries in Central Europe are suffering from small rate of political party membership and individual participation on the of political parties activities. The lack of party membership is accompanied by processes of professionalization of intraparty life and commercialization of political campaigning.

Party images, leaders, programmes, candidates on political positions became just products selling through political marketing. Thanks to their marketing style of politics, political parties are blamed to be the driving forces of high level systemic corruption because it represents the vital source of money for their permanent marketing campaigns.

To avoid the political market asymmetry and to strengthen the influence of political party reputation on voters’ behaviour, the paper propose radical change in political party financing through the opening space for political consumerism in political market.