Financat dhe Partitë Politike – “Më thuaj si financohesh, të të them se ç’parti je”
Finances and Political Parties - "Tell me how you are financed, I'll tell you what party you are"

Summary/Abstract: The paper is an attempt to explore the role that the public fundings plays on the Albanian political parties. The main argument of the paper is that since public funding became available to the political parties in Albania since the moment of their inception, the political parties didn’t have incentives to establish strong links with society. Therefore, the Albanian political parties resemble more to their contemporary Western counterparts rather than to the mass party which was the mode of party organization in the beginning of the 20th century. In the paper is analysed the Albanian legislation on political parties during 1991-2013 and the parties’ financial reports during 2009-2013. The conclusion is that the legal arrangements for political parties’ funding encourage their electoral orientation. In the same line, the incomes from membership contributions provide only a small amount of the necessary funds for the campain and for the day-to-day activity of political parties. On the other hand, the state is the largest financial contributor to the Albanian political parties and this indicates that the political parties in Albania have weak links with society and strong links with the state. Therefore the Albanian political parties display features of the cartel party which is oriented towards the state and invests more on the electorate rather than on members.

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