[open-government] [PMO Network] New research and resources from the Money, Politics and Transparency project

Thu Jul 16 17:28:52 UTC 2015

Congrats!

Great news!

JuanI Belbis

1138312980
--
juanibelbis.com.ar
juani at belbis.com.ar
sk: juanibelbis
tw: juanibelbis

On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Lindsay Ferris <
lferris at sunlightfoundation.com> wrote:

> **Apologies for cross-posting**
>
> Hi all,
>
> Today, Money, Politics and Transparency
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org>, a joint project between Sunlight,
> Global Integrity and the Electoral Integrity Project, could not be more
> excited to launch our revamped website
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org>, including a first-of-its-kind
> dataset and series of case studies
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/casestudies> documenting campaign
> finance transparency practices globally. We are also fueling next steps for
> policy advocates through the release of the Declaration on Political
> Finance Openness for public comment.
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/declaration> We hope these
> resources will become an asset to transparency and political finance
> advocates globally.
>
> You can see our full announcement below or on the Sunlight blog
> <http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2015/07/16/new-resources-from-the-money-politics-and-transparency-project-expose-moneys-troubling-role-in-politics/>.
> We look forward to hearing your feedback on these resources.
>
>
> Today, the Money, Politics and Transparency
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/> (MPT) project, a joint-initiative
> between the Sunlight Foundation, Global Integrity and the Electoral
> Integrity Project, is excited to release a new set of resources that expose
> money’s troubling role in political parties and election campaigns globally.
>
> Our revamped Money, Politics and Transparency website
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/> now includes a first-of-its-kind
> dataset <http://data.moneypoliticstransparency.org/> andseries of case
> studies <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/casestudies> documenting
> campaign finance transparency practices globally. We are also fueling next
> steps for policy advocates through the release of the Declaration on
> Political Finance Openness for public comment
> <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/declaration>.
>
> Global dissatisfaction with the funding of political parties and elections
> is undeniable. Citizens, advocates, journalists and policymakers often
> voice concerns about the associated risks of corruption, undue influence
> and the potential for abuse of state resources that money’s role presents.
> However, our new findings substantiate vague anecdotes of corrupt practices
> and cronyism with a rigorous methodology that gives national-level
> reformers a starting point to inform their advocacy efforts. The Campaign
> Finance Indicators systematically assess the regulation and enforcement of
> political finance across 54 diverse countries, while the in-depth
> comparative case studies shed light on ways in which states around the
> world attempt to regulate the role of money in politics, what triggers
> landmark reforms as well as what works, what fails and why. Finally, the
> MPT Declaration builds upon the research components and existing
> international standards for combating corruption to create an affirmative
> vision for reforming political finance systems.
>
> The Campaign Finance Indicators and case studies reveal the following key
> challenges in regulating political finance practices:
>
>    - *Systems of public funding for political parties and elections are
>    often unfairly distributed and ripe for abuse.* Although public
>    funding programs are often employed to prevent political actors from
>    relying solely on private sector donors, these systems are often
>    inequitably implemented. In 94 percent of the countries researched in the
>    Campaign Finance Indicators, political actors deploy state resources for
>    electoral gain. Abuses take diverse forms, ranging from the relatively
>    mundane (traveling to campaign events in state-owned helicopters in
>    Bangladesh) to the dramatic (deploying agents of the national intelligence
>    agency in Korea).
>
>
>    - *Details on how political parties and elections are funded are still
>    distressingly opaque.*Despite widespread efforts globally to
>    strengthen disclosure requirements, full details on the donations and
>    expenditures of political actors are rarely publicly available — and they
>    are even less likely to be usable. In 96 percent of the Campaign Finance
>    Indicators sample, there is limited or no information on the financial
>    activities of political actors made available to the public in a timely
>    fashion, online and in an accessible format. In fact, only the U.S. and
>    Australia make all reported political finance information available online
>    in machine-readable formats.
>
>
>    - *Scandals can power political finance reform.* The cross-national
>    evidence shows that rational political parties are responsive to corruption
>    scandals and demands of powerful interest groups. Italy, for example, had
>    no legislation regarding the funding of political parties until 1974, when
>    a scandal generated citizen mistrust and the first political finance law
>    was passed in a record 40 days.
>
>
>    - *Widespread lack of regulation of third-party actors contributes to
>    poor oversight and lack of transparency in political finance systems. *Third-party
>    actors who solicit contributions and make expenditures related to electoral
>    campaigns are rarely subject to oversight. Only 11 percent of the countries
>    researched in the Campaign Finance Indicators regulate the electoral
>    activities of nonprofits, unions and independent expenditure groups.
>
>
>    - *Regulations are only meaningful when there is a capability for
>    enforcement — which is highly restricted in many states.* Partisan
>    appointments, insufficient staff and budget, and a lack of substantive
>    legal power hinder oversight bodies in countries as diverse as the U.S.,
>    Romania, Nigeria and Russia, and can lead to corruption and imbalanced
>    party competition.
>
> These findings confirm the weighty challenges that lay ahead for the
> political finance reform community (a network that can be found through the MPT
> google group
> <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/money-politics-transparency>).
> There is much work to be done, but also unlimited potential for progress,
> and a diverse global community dedicated to this issue is essential to
> generating change.
>
> Today, we are also excited to launch the Declaration on Political Finance
> Openness. It’s intended to build consensus among the interests of the
> community monitoring political finance, uniting CSOs, journalists,
> academics and even civic hackers behind an affirmative vision for what we
> believe a robust, open and accountable political finance system looks like.
> The forthcoming provision commentary will also be released this fall
> alongside the finalized document, which will provide background, specific
> examples and guidance for policymakers. We hope that the MPT Declaration
> will ultimately become a platform that advocates can present to political
> parties and government officials to support their campaigns for reform.
>
> We are now opening up the document for a public comment period to ensure
> that the MPT Declaration truly encompasses the widest range of perspectives
> from the global community. We welcome and encourage you to provide feedback
> on the document by commenting on the Money, Politics and Transparency web
> page <http://moneypoliticstransparency.org/declaration>. Additionally, if
> you have any questions about the MPT Declaration or would like to share
> comments privately, please direct them to Sunlight International Policy
> Analyst Lindsay Ferris at lferris at sunlightfoundation.com. We believe that
> the Declaration of Political Finance Openness will only be as strong as the
> champions behind it. We look forward to hearing from you.
>
> --
> Lindsay Ferris
> International Policy Analyst | Sunlight Foundation
> 202.742.1520 (w) | 703.945.3659 (m)
> [image: Sunlight Foundation] <http://sunlightfoundation.com/> [image:
> Sunlight Foundation on Facebook]
> <http://www.facebook.com/sunlightfoundation>[image: Sunlight Foundation
> on Twitter] <http://twitter.com/sunfoundation>[image: OpenGov on Reddit]
> <http://www.reddit.com/r/sunlight>[image: Sunlight Foundation on YouTube]
> <http://www.youtube.com/sunlightfoundation>
> <http://sunlightfoundation.com/feeds/latest/>
>
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