Don’t judge the book by its cover: Political foundations and their role in political financing

Understanding the ways in which political parties and candidates attract and spend money is critical to discerning their priorities and roles in democratic societies. In the European context, a common approach has been to establish a significant public role in financing politics in order to limit the influence of private exchanges, and safeguard the pluralism. However, ongoing processes such as the personalization of politics - with an emphasis on candidates-, and the economic crisis -which has pushed countries for a revision of public expenditure to sustain collective actors- have drawn scholars' attention back to the private sources of money and their network of connections and logics. This paper offers a new perspective on private financing by considering the role of political foundations. While previous theoretical evaluations and empirical evidence have identified party organizations, candidates, and donors as the main actors involved in private financing of politics, other important organizations related to parties must also be considered. Political foundations are formally affiliated organizations recognized in party statutes that assist parties in acquiring and elaborating information and policy ideas. Informally, most of these organizations are led by former members of the party's central officeand/or previous politicians with an outstanding public profile. In addition, in many countries, political foundations are legally recognized even if not directly linked to a party's organization. Moreover, in some contexts, these organizations can act as intermediaries other than political parties in collecting or redirecting money. Currently, there is a lack of evidence regarding the role that political foundations play as alternative or complementary political actors to parties. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing and defining the roleof political foundations in four main EU countries (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), with particular attention to regulations regarding the transfer of money directed by or through them.