Votes and Resources: Political Finance in Germany

Abstract

“Votes count,” Stein Rokkan asserted many years ago, “but resourcesdecide.”1 Political finance is one of the many arenas in which Alexanderand Shiratori’s “conflict between real inequalities in economicresources and idealized equalities in political resources” is fought out.2Yet the battleground is more complex than either of these authoritiessuggests. Votes are also a resource. They legitimate, and they can alsopunish, if those who cast them think that economic resources arebeing used unreasonably. Above all, the determination of electoraloutcomes involves players others than voters and moneyedinterests. In almost all modern democracies there are referees ofvarying effectiveness. In general, the referee is “the state,” but muchdepends on the organs through which the state operates. Governmentsare not necessarily neutral agents; they and the parliamentsthat legislate on the regulation of political finance may merely reflectthe interests of dominant or established parties. Political finance can,however, also be regulated, as for instance in Germany or the UnitedStates, by judicial review. In addition the media almost everywhereplay an unpredictable role as spectator, watchdog or interested participant.