Fundraising is an essential part of the political enterprise. In almost all countries, parties and candidates rely on donations in order to collect sufficient resources to finance their political activities. While most of the existing research in the past has focused on the motivation of donors to contribute to parties and candidates, this article starts from the premise that the level of donations can best be explained by an interplay of supply-side factors (donors) and demand-side factors (political actors). This article specifically focuses on the demand-side: which policy and strategies do political actors develop to seek donations from various sources? To this end, explanatory factors on three main dimensions – institutional, inter-party, intra-party – were examined with regards to the fundraising strategies of European political parties and foundations. Based on a combination of a document analysis and semi-structured interviews, the article will show how the regulatory framework, the possibility of a public backlash, party ideology and the general income structure of political parties influence their donation policy.

This article discusses the contribution of European political parties to democratic backsliding. It focuses on the European People’s Party’s efforts to protect the Hungarian government, and the European Conservatives and Reformists party’s permissive acceptance of the Polish government’s attacks on democracy and the rule of law, analysing these patterns of behaviour as a form of complicity in democratic backsliding. In a second step, the article examines the existing possibilities and normative justification for sanctioning European political parties that make a complicit contribution to democratic backsliding.