“French government politicians have scope for discretion to decide about public funding for civil society organizations,” says Camille Urvoy from the EPoS Economic Research Center. “This scope is problematic as it opens the door to public funding being conditioned on organization members supporting politicians in office. I see a real threat to the independence of organizations. This could lead to an uneven representation of interests in public French debates.”
It is the role of civil society organizations to foster public debates and to hold politicians accountable, says Urvoy. Yet, organizations may self-censor or avoid criticizing politicians to safeguard access to funding under present rules.
Funding for rallying members’ support
Drawing on a rich dataset covering 10 years of funding data, Urvoy demonstrates that government politicians provide significantly higher funding to civil society organizations in their own political camp. This difference is even larger when local elections are nearing and margins are narrow: Some organizations receive 40 percent more financial support each year compared to others in opposition-controlled municipalities.
The research concludes that politicians use funding decisions to signal to organizations and their members that their concerns will be prioritized, particularly when electoral competition is fierce, and organization members may support other candidates. “The strategy appears to be aimed at rallying support from organizations’ members, who are often highly active voters,” says Urvoy. “Yet, organizations appear to benefit from additional funding only if the candidate they support is elected. This may give them incentives to moderate any criticism they may have of the politicians granting them funds, thereby undermining their democratic role.”
Other mechanisms for funding NGOs
A look at other countries shows that there are no single, commonly agreed-on criteria to decide which organizations deserve public funding. Some discretion of elected officials seems inevitable, since there is no objective measure of organizations’ value. “Other funding systems, such as tax incentives for private giving or firms’ donations, also have their drawbacks,” says Urvoy. “In any case, a good mechanism for funding civil society organizations needs to ensure that they can contribute to a pluralistic democratic debate without any strings attached. In France, a first step in this direction would be to transparently disclose the amounts granted to organizations in a way that is easily accessible to the public.”