This book is about the financing of politics, political parties, candidates, and elections. Recognized authorities have contributed excellent case studies from thirteen countries, presenting country-by-country comparisons and offering a conceptual framework that enables the reader to understand the context and implications of funding sources, campaign expenditures, and regulatory systems.

Among the specific topics the authors discuss are the effects of public money on political systems, the role of public funding in comparative perspective, the relative merits of indirect and direct public funding, the effects of national election regulation in encouraging or discouraging public participation, partisan alignments on the issue of public financing, and the relationship between stable political systems and the nature of political financing and public funding for those systems.

The contributors also cover the unanticipated consequences of legislative responses to campaign funding abuses and public calls for political financial reform. The cases show that these issues are common to democracies seeking to regulate the uses and abuses of money in politics in pluralistic societies.