The term 'level playing field' has become common in modern English, to refer to fair competition, particularly in the United States of America. It is a reference to a football field, where neither side has the advantage of running downhill against opponents who are handicapped by having to run uphill. A parallel term, found in Article 21 of the (West) German Basic Law of 1949 is Chancengleichheit (equality of opportunity).
In practice, 'fairness' may have a variety of different, contradictory meanings.
Fairness as Equality of Outcome
Arguably, one way to ensure that each party and each candidate is treated fairly is to provide precisely the same opportunities and financial resources to each, irrespective of their size and popularity. The argument for giving all parties and all candidates an equal share of free television time, or financial grants, is that they all require an equal opportunity to put their case to the voters.
This is the principle followed in granting free postal facilities to British
parliamentary candidates. Candidates nominated by major and minor parties, as well as independent candidates, have equal entitlements.
By contrast, it can be argued that equal treatment for major parties and for fringe groups is both impractical and unjust. It is arguably unjust and unfair to give a fringe party the same public benefits and the same financial aid as a major party. For a fringe party, that may have only a handful of members, the chance to obtain even a few minutes of free time on television represents a huge benefit. By contrast, the same few minutes will be inadequate for the major
parties. Where there are dozens, or hundreds, of competing parties, a policy of allocating precisely the same amount of time to each inevitably results in near chaos, as voters are confronted with a multitude of different messages.
Moreover, such an 'equal time' policy may conceal a strong bias against the main opposition parties. The governing party will normally have separate opportunities to project itself. If the main opposition party receives the same small slice of free television time as dozens of insignificant parties, it will receive a wholly inadequate opportunity to present its message, which will help the government. The unsatisfactory results of the policy of equal television time for large and small parties have been seen in founding elections in several of the previously Communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Positive Discrimination
It may be argued that 'fairness' demands positive discrimination in favour of new or small parties. According to this interpretation, the major political forces in any society already have ample chances to express themselves. Extra opportunities need, therefore, to be provided to the political outsiders to organize themselves and to put forward their views to the voters.
An example of an application of this compensatory ideal of 'fairness' is the scheme introduced in 1975 in the British House of Commons, whereby financial subsidies are given to the opposition parties represented in the lower chamber. The governing party does not receive a subsidy. The rationale for the arrangement is that the governing party receives the benefit of the advice of the civil service. It is only the opposition parties that need funds to employ staff to prepare their arguments.
Fairness Based on Political Support
This involves the principle that small parties and fringe candidates should receive less support than the main ones. This idea may apply to the allocation of time for free electoral broadcasts on television and radio. It may apply also to financial subsidies. For example, it may be argued that only the principal candidates in a presidential election should be expected to debate with each other on national television, or that the large parties should be given more time slots for party political broadcasts than small ones.
This principle has common sense and justice behind it, but it also has problems. The common sense argument for fairness as an allocation pro rata to the support enjoyed by each contestant is that it avoids the situation where dozens, or even hundreds, of trivial candidates and parties set themselves up, merely to gain the free publicity that results if all legally recognized contestants are given the same exposure. It is simply not practical for voters to digest so many different messages. In the slang of political scientists and diplomats, there are (especially in newly formed democracies) 'sofa parties', parties so small that all their members can be seated on a single sofa.
The argument of justice is that it is unreasonable for a party or candidate representing a sprinkling of supporters to have the same opportunity to broadcast to the voters as a major party.
The above considerations provide a strong basis for the argument that 'fairness' should mean the proportionality of state aid to each contestant's support. However, the application of this principle produces problems.
The first problem is whether the extent of each party's support should be measured according to its past performance or according to its current performance. The easiest and apparently most objective measure of support is the percentage of the vote gained by each party at the most recent election. This is the main basis for state funding of party organizations in Germany. The
weakness of this allocation system is that it may support existing parties at the expense of newly formed ones, or ones that have increased their popularity (as measured by opinion polls or other means) since the last election. In some countries (Namibia, for example), funds are allocated according to the number of votes obtained in a national election, but only to parties represented in Parliament. Parties failing to win a seat in the legislature are thus at a
disadvantage.
The second problem is whether the extent of support should be measured by votes, or by some other indicator. It could be argued, for example, that public financial subsidies should match the membership, or the private financial support, for each party rather than its votes.
Fairness between Political Parties and Pressure Groups
Systems of regulation and of subsidy affect not only the balance between contesting parties, but also the balance between political parties as a group and other forms of political expression. If a system of regulation restricts political parties, it may have the effect of favouring other, unregulated channels of political communication.
Conclusion
The level playing field is an important principle, but it has so many different meanings that different political parties and candidates will frequently disagree as to what is 'fair'. Naturally, they will each tend to favour a definition of 'fairness' that accords with their self-interest.
