ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overall view of the various methods of party financing in Sweden and Austria, their development over time, and the distribution of funds. The Austrian and Swedish representative democracies are usually characterized as systems of party government. In Austria a Party Act and in Sweden a voluntary agreement requires the national party organizations to publish their income and expenditures. In Austria as well as Sweden, general national party subsidies are paralleled at regional and local levels. Besides the subsidies to party organizations, parliamentary caucuses in Austria and Sweden receive public fundings for their offices and their public relations activities. In Austria, however, the financial burden of political parties is eased considerably by public subsidies to party academies, because the main task of the Austrian party academies is to provide services to the respective party members. Both the Austrian and the Swedish parties have their highest expenditures in election years.
