Political Money and Party Finance

Abstract

Healthy democratic politics depends on a free flow of information among citizens, groups, candidates for public office, and political parties. The right to speak diminishes in significance without the ability to be heard, and that speech is often conditional on the availability of financial resources to pay for public communication. Yet the manner in which political money is raised and spent can undermine the legitimacy of democratic politics. Efforts to prevent concentrations of wealth from undermining political equality or introducing corruption may conflict with bedrock freedoms of speech and association. Every democracy struggles to reconcile the need for political money with the problems it begets. None have found entirely satisfactory and long-lasting solutions. The political finance tools available to policy makers – public subsidies for candidates and political parties, limits and controls on political contributions and expenditures, disclosure requirements, and regulation of campaign activity – often leave reformers unsatisfied and produce unanticipated consequences. Not all political finance measures are doomed to fail, nor are they miracle cures for the ills arising from money in politics. Democracies will continue to struggle not to solve these problems once and for all, but to contain and manage them as best as they can.