ABSTRACT
The changing relationship between political parties and the state in modern
democracies has been a major topic in party studies at least since the
seminal article on cartel parties by Richard Katz and Peter Mair.1 Their
propositions have triggered considerable reaction in terms of both criticism2
and their application to party politics in the post-communist democracies.3
While the cartelization hypothesis focuses primarily on the role of public
party financing in shaping the relationship between political parties and the
state, recent accounts have widened the scope of research to analyse further
