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Checkbook Elections?
Checkbook Elections?
Political Finance in Comparative Perspective

E D I T E D B Y P I P PA N O R R I S
and
A N D R E A A B E L VA N E S

1
 1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America.

© Oxford University Press 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction
rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above.

You must not circulate this work in any other form

and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress

ISBN 978–​0 –​19–​0 60361–​8(pbk.)
ISBN 978–​0 –​19–​0 60360–​1(hbk.)

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed by Webcom, Cananda
 CONTENTS

List of Figures vii

List of Tables ix
Preface xi
About the Contributors xiii

1. Introduction: Understanding Political Finance Reform 1

P i p pa N o r r i s a n d A n d r e a A b e l va n E s

PART I C A SE ST U DI E S

2. Brazil 27
Bru no W ilhelm Speck

3. Britain 45
Justin Fisher

4. India 64
E s wa r a n S r i d h a r a n a n d M i l a n Va i s h n av

5. Indonesia 84
M arcus Mietzner

6. Japan 103
M atthew Ca r lson

7. Russia 121
G r i g o r i i V. G o l o s o v

8. South Africa 141

R ich a r d Ca ll a nd

v
vi Contents

9. Sweden 159
M agn us Oh m a n

10. The United States 177

R ic h a r d Br i f fau lt

PART II COM PA R AT I V E E V I DENCE

11. Why Regulate Political Finance? 199

A n d r e a A b e l va n E s

12. Does Regulation Work? 227

P i p pa N o r r i s a n d A n d r e a A b e l va n E s

PART III CONC LUSIONS

13. The Lessons for Political Finance Reform 257

P i p pa N o r r i s a n d A n d r e a A b e l va n E s

Technical Appendix 271

A n d r e a A b e l va n E s
Notes 281
References 289
Index 315
 LIST OF FIGU R ES

1.1 Classification of types of de jure statutory political finance regulatory

policies 15
2.1 Amount of resources in party funds 37
6.1 Percentage of subsidy to total party income, Japan, 1995–​2012 115
9.1 Parties in the Swedish parliament after the 2014 elections 162
11.1 Global variation in the Political Finance Regulation Index 213
12.1 Policy cycle model of political finance regulation 229
12.2 The degree of regulation compared with the perceived quality of
campaign finance 242
13.1 The effect of reforms on normative goals for the selected cases 265
A.1 Factor loading and item discrimination for PFRI indicator
variables 274
A.2 Country rankings for the PFRI 275
A.3 Country rankings for total levels of regulation 278

vii
 LIST OF TA BL E S

1.1 Variations among the Selected Cases 20

2.1 Rules on Party and Campaign Finance in Brazil 35
2.2 Institutions Involved in Rulemaking in Brazilian Elections 42
5.1 Changes in Indonesia’s Electoral System, 1999–​2014 87
5.2 Total Amount of State Subsidies to Parties at the National and Local
Levels, 2001–​2014 92
5.3 Public Funding for PDIP’s Central Office and Expenditure in Preceding
Election, 2001–​2014 92
5.4 Donation Caps for Parties and Executive Candidates (as of 2014) 94
6.1 Average Income and Expenses Reported by Party Members
(yen in millions) 116
7.1 The Main Features of Russia’s Political Finance Regime 127
7.2 The Structure of Income of Russia’s Political Parties in 2012 135
7.3 The Structure of Expenses of Russia’s Political Parties in 2012 137
8.1 Relevant Timeline in South Africa 143
8.2 Total Election Spending in South Africa 151
9.1 State Funding Received by Parliamentary Parties Annually
(total 2009–​2013) 165
9.2 Income Sources for Parliamentary Parties (2009–​2013,
SEK millions) 166
9.3 Parliamentary Election Campaign Budget for the Parliamentary Parties,
2014 168
11.1 Public Interest Theories of Regulation 219
11.2 Private Interest Theories of Regulation 221
12.1 Medium-​Term Outputs: The Quality of Campaign Finance Index
by the Level of Regulation 241
12.2 The Impact of Types of Policies on the Perceived Quality of Campaign
Finance Practices 243

ix
x L i s t o f Ta b l e s

12.3 Long-​Term Impacts: Corruption Perception, Voter Turnout,

and Party Competition 251
A.1 United Kingdom and United States Compared: Total Regulation
and PFRI 276
A.2 Correlations of the PFRI with Other Indicators of State Regulation 279
 PR E FAC E

Regulating political finance is a challenge facing many countries around the

world. Money is essential for many democratic processes, including for the
underwriting cost of communications linking elected representative with their
constituents, for building and mobilizing grass-​roots party organizations, and
for running effective election campaigns. Elections that work well are essential
for democracy. Yet the appropriate legal frameworks and procedures regulat-
ing political finance remain a challenge in many countries, with problems aris-
ing from government scandals associated with kickbacks, undue influence, and
illicit contributions, lack of a level playing field in party war-​chests, or, in the worst
cases, rentier states governed by kleptocracy, corruption, and the abuse of state
resources. In fragile states, such as Afghanistan, Mexico, or Thailand, problems
of money politics undermine feelings of trust in elected authorities and the legiti-
macy in the regime. Even long-​established democracies such as the United States,
Italy, and Japan are not immune from major scandals and controversies over the
role of money in politics.
To address concerns about these issues, this book brings together a wide range
of scholars and practitioners with expertise in the area of political finance. The
volume is part of the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP), a six-​year research project
generously funded by the award of the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate
from the Australian Research Council. The Money, Politics and Transparency
Project was launched in 2013 as a collaborative project linking EIP with Global
Integrity and the Sunlight Foundation, and it has been generously funded by the
Open Society Institute and the Hewlett Foundation. The project focuses on the
challenges of regulating political finance around the world, including why it mat-
ters, why this regulation succeeds or fails, and what can be done to address these
problems. Draft research papers, which formed the basis for these chapters, were
originally presented at a workshop held during the Australian Political Studies
Association (APSA) annual meeting held in the University of Sydney on 28

xi
xii Preface

September 2014. As well as the contributors, we would also like to thank all the
workshop participants, who provided such lively and stimulating comments.
As always, this book also owes immense debts to many friends and colleagues.
The EIP project is located in the Department of Government and International
Relations at the University of Sydney and the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard University. We are deeply indebted to Michael Spence,
Duncan Ivison, Simon Tormey, Allan McConnell, and Graeme Gill for facilitat-
ing the arrangement at the University of Sydney, as well as to all colleagues at
Sydney and Harvard. The book would not have been possible without the research
team and visiting fellows at Sydney, who have played an essential role in stimu-
lating ideas, providing critical feedback and advice, generating related publica-
tions, and organizing events, especially developing the Perceptions of Electoral
Integrity (PEI) data set. Among our partners, we greatly appreciate the contribu-
tions and collaboration of Nathaniel Heller, Hazel Feigenblatt, Johannes Tonn,
Scott Rumpsa, Michael Moses, Olivia Radics, and Melody Wong (all at Global
Integrity), and Lisa Rosenberg, Ellen Miller, John Wonderlich, Júlia Keseru,
Lindsay Ferris, and Caitlin Weber (at the Sunlight Foundation). We would
also like to acknowledge the members of the Money, Politics and Transparency
Project’s Advisory Committee (for details, see moneypoliticstransparency.org/​
about). We would also like to thank visiting fellows and interns at the Electoral
Integrity Project at Sydney for providing stimulating feedback during the book’s
gestation, as well as invaluable ideas arising from research seminars and related
talks by Ian McAllister, Ben Reilly, Ben Goldsmith, Rodney Smith, Anika Gauja,
Jorgen Elklit, and Andrew Reynolds, among many others. In particular, the book
would not have been possible without the invaluable contribution of Richard
Frank, Alessandro Nai, Ferran Martínez i Coma, Max Grömping, and Lisa
Fennis, the core team based at the Electoral Integrity Project.
 A BOU T TH E CONTR I BU TOR S

Andrea Abel van Es is the Project Manager for the Money, Politics and
Transparency Project, a collaboration between the Electoral Integrity Project,
the Sunlight Foundation, and Global Integrity. Prior to this position she was an
adjunct lecturer for the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies at
Stanford University, where she taught courses in quantitative research methods,
program evaluation, and civil society in transitioning regimes. She has served as
a consultant for the Kofi Annan Global Commission on Elections, Democracy
and Security (a joint collaboration with International IDEA), the Humanitarian
Innovation Project at Oxford, the Danish Refugee Council, as well as local San
Francisco/​Bay Area organizations Samasource and Village Enterprise. Dr. Abel
van Es received her PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2011,
after which she cofounded the International Policy Research and Evaluation
(IPRE) Group—​a consultancy for international development and aid organiza-
tions. She holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and a masters of
engineering research in mechatronic engineering, both from the University of
Sydney, Australia.
Richard Briffault is the Joseph P. Chamberlain Professor of Law at Columbia
Law School. His current research, writing, and teaching focus on the law of the
political process, state, and local government law, and property law. He received
his JD from Harvard Law School, where he was the developments editor of the
Harvard Law Review. He is Chair of the New York City Conflicts of Interest
Board; served as a member of New York’s Moreland Commission to Investigate
Public Corruption; and is the Reporter for the American Law Institute’s proj-
ect on Principles of Government Ethics. He is the coauthor of State and Local
Government Law; principal author of Dollars and Democracy: A Blueprint for
Campaign Finance Reform, and author of Balancing Acts: The Reality behind State
Balanced Budget Requirements. He has authored more than seventy law review arti-
cles including “The Anxiety of Influence: The Evolving Regulation of Lobbying”

xiii
xiv About the Contributors

(2014), “The Future of Public Funding” (2013), “Coordination Reconsidered”

(2013), “Super PACs” (2012), and “Campaign Finance Disclosure 2.0” (2010), in
major legal journals including the Columbia Law Review, University of Pennsylvania
Law Review, Election Law Journal, Urban Lawyer, and the University of Chicago
Legal Forum.
Richard Calland is Associate Professor in the Department of Public Law at the
University of Cape Town, where he teaches constitutional, human rights, and
administrative law, and serves as Director of its Democratic Governance & Rights
Unit. Described by Columbia University Professor Sheila Coronel as “one of the
pioneers of the global right to information movement,” he specializes in the law
and practice of the right to access to information and was co-​founder of the Open
Democracy Advice Centre. In 2015, he was retained by the US Securities Exchange
Commission as an expert witness in its prosecution of Hitachi for breaches of
the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act, arising from payments made by a subsidiary to
Chancellor House, a front company for the African National Congress in South
Africa. Since 2001, Calland has written a fortnightly political column for the Mail
and Guardian newspaper, “Contretemps,” and is a regular commentator in the
media. His latest book, The Zuma Years: South Africa’s Changing Anatomy of Power,
was published in 2013. Before coming to South Africa in 1994, Calland practiced
law at the London bar (called in 1987 at Lincoln’s Inn). He holds an LLM from the
University of Cape Town, a diploma in world politics from the London School of
Economics, and a BA (Hons.) in law from the University of Durham.
Matthew Carlson is Associate Professor at the University of Vermont. He spe-
cializes in comparative politics and Asian politics with an emphasis on political
parties, electoral systems, campaign finance, and public opinion. He received
his PhD from the University of California, Davis: for his dissertation research,
he was awarded a two-​year scholarship from the Japanese government to study
the political consequences of Japan’s new electoral system at the University
of Tokyo. He has been a Lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and a
Research Associate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
He teaches classes on comparative politics and the politics of Japan, China, and
East Asia. He has authored two books: Money Politics in Japan (Lynne Rienner,
2007) and Democracy and Governance in Asia (Trans Pacific Press, 2006). His arti-
cles have appeared in journals including Asian Survey, Journal of Peace Research,
Democratization, Party Politics, Japanese Journal of Political Science, and the Journal
of East Asian Studies.
Justin Fisher is Professor of Political Science and Head of the Department of
Politics, History and Law at Brunel University, London, where he also heads
the Magna Carta Institute. He earned his PhD in Government from Brunel
University. He has published extensively on elections, campaigns, and political
 About the Contributors xv

parties in several journals, including the British Journal of Politics and International
Relations, Political Studies, and Political Quarterly. He is a particular expert in
party finance and has acted as a consultant and advisor to the British Ministry of
Justice, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, the Electoral Commission,
the Council of Europe, and the Georgian Ministry of Justice.
Grigorii V. Golosov is Professor of Comparative Politics at the European
University in St. Petersburg. Between 2008 and 2011, he was the project direc-
tor for the Center for Democracy and Human Rights—​Helix. He earned his
doctor of political sciences degree from the Institute of Comparative Politics of
the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. He has been a visiting scholar in
numerous international institutions such as the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, the Paris Institute of Political Sciences, and the Center for
Slavic and East European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He
has also received numerous fellowships and grants, including from the United
States Institute of Peace and the Research Council of Norway. He is the author
of several books looking at democracy and the party system in Russia, as well as
numerous journal articles.
Marcus Mietzner is Associate Professor in the Department of Political and
Social Change, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University.
He received his PhD from the Australian National University, after which he
worked for the US Agency for International Development in Jakarta for several
years. He has worked on party and campaign-​fi nancing issues in Indonesia. He
has published extensively on Indonesian politics in peer-​reviewed journals, such
as Asian Survey, Journal of East Asian Studies, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Journal of
Southeast Asian Studies, Australian Journal of Asian Law, and South East Asia Research.
His latest book is Money, Power and Ideology: Political Parties in Post-​authoritarian
Indonesia (2013), published by Hawaii University Press.
Pippa Norris is the McGuire Lecturer in Comparative Politics, John F. Kennedy
School of Government at Harvard University, and Laureate Research Fellow and
Professor of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney.
She directs the Electoral Integrity Project. Honors include the Johan Skytte
Award, the Karl Deutsch Award, and the Australian Research Council Laureate
Award, among others. Her research compares elections and public opinion, politi-
cal communications, and gender politics. She has published more than forty books,
many for Cambridge University Press, including most recently Democratic Deficit
(2011), Making Democratic Governance Work (2012), Why Electoral Integrity Matters
(2014), and Why Elections Fail (2015). Her work has been translated into more
than a dozen languages, including German, Dutch, Italian, Swedish, Spanish,
French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Hungarian, Russian, and Polish. In terms
of public service, she has served as the Director of the Democratic Governance
xvi About the Contributors

Practice in the United National Development Programme in New York. She has
also been an expert consultant for many international official bodies, including
the United Nations, UNESCO, International IDEA, the NED, the World Bank,
the Inter-​Parliamentary Union, the National Democratic Institute, the Council
of Europe, the UK Electoral Commission, and the Afghanistan Reconstruction
Project. She has taught at Harvard since 1992, at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government and Harvard’s Government Department. Full details can be found
at http://​w ww.pippanorris.com.

Magnus Ohman has worked with political finance issues since the 1990s with a
focus on effective disclosure, the implementation of regulations, and sustainable
solutions. His research includes both country analyses and macro-​level studies
of trends and practices in political finance regulation, and his writings have been
translated into 18 languages. His practical work includes assistance to legislators,
implementing agencies, civil society, media, and political parties. Dr. Ohman works
as Senior Political Finance Adviser and Director of the Regional Europe Office
for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), and he has worked
with political finance initiatives in some 30 countries, including Afghanistan,
Armenia, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Egypt, Georgia, Haiti, Indonesia, Jordan,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, FYR Macedonia, the Maldives, Moldova, Montenegro,
Myanmar/​Burma, Nigeria, the Philippines, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Sweden, Tunisia,
Ukraine, the United States, Yemen, and Zimbabwe.
Bruno Wilhelm Speck is Professor in the Department of Political Science at
the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil. He has been a Fellow Researcher
at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in
Freiburg (1999) and a Visiting Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin (2002).
From 2003 to 2009 Speck joined Transparency International (a network of non-
profit organizations fighting corruption worldwide, based in Berlin) as a senior
researcher. He has consulted for INWENT (Capacity Building International)
and GTZ (Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit), the Carter Center and
IFES (International Foundation for Election Systems), the Christian Michelsen
Institute and the OECD. Speck has published books and articles on good gover-
nance, corruption, parties and party systems, money in politics, campaign finance
and government auditing. Speck holds a doctorate in political science from the
University of Freiburg im Breisgau (1995).
Eswaran Sridharan is the Academic Director of the University of Pennsylvania
Institute for the Advanced Study of India (UPIASI) in New Delhi. He is a politi-
cal scientist with research interests in Indian and comparative politics, political
economy of development, and international relations. He is the author or editor
of nine books and nearly seventy journal articles and chapters in edited volumes.
He is the editor of India Review, a pan-​social science refereed quarterly on India,
 About the Contributors xvii

published by Routledge in the United States, and is on the editorial board of

the UK-​based journal Commonwealth and Comparative Politics. He has held vis-
iting appointments at the University of California, Berkeley; London School of
Economics; Institute for Developing Economies, Tokyo; Institute of South Asian
Studies, National University of Singapore; and the Center for the Advanced
Study of India, University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD in political sci-
ence from the University of Pennsylvania.

Milan Vaishnav is an Associate in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie

Endowment for International Peace. His primary research focus is the political
economy of India, and he examines issues such as corruption and governance,
state capacity, distributive politics, and electoral behavior. He is the author of
a forthcoming book on crime, corruption, and democracy in India (to be pub-
lished by Yale University Press). Previously, he worked at the Center for Global
Development, where he served as a postdoctoral research fellow; the Center for
Strategic and International Studies; and the Council on Foreign Relations. He
has taught at Columbia, Georgetown, and George Washington Universities. He
holds a PhD in political science from Columbia University.
Checkbook Elections?
 1

Introduction
Understanding Political Finance Reform
Pi ppa Nor r is a n d A n dr e a A be l va n E s

Problems of money in politics are in the headlines every day somewhere around
the world. The “Recruit” scandal in Japan, the misuse of “Westminster expenses”
in Britain, and “Watergate” in the United States exemplify cases in which long-​
established democracies were rocked by major problems of financial malfeasance.
These well-​k nown examples are far from isolated, however, as political corruption
has damaged democratic governance in many southern European countries, nota-
bly Greece, Italy, Belgium, France, Spain, and Bulgaria (Pujas and Rhodes 1998;
Della Porta and Vannucci 1999; Heywood, Pujas, and Rhodes 2002). Moreover
graft, kickbacks, and cronyism commonly plague public affairs in emerging
economies and developing societies (Olken and Pande 2012), illustrated in this
book by the case studies in India, Indonesia, and Russia, all states rated poorly by
Transparency International’s 2014 Corruption Perception Index.1
Malfeasance, bribes, and the abuse of public funds in politics are generally
thought to have many harmful consequences for democratic governance, by
damaging political trust, undermining the impartial delivery of public goods and
services, reinforcing the power, status, and wealth of elites, weakening electoral
accountability, diverting development aid from reaching the poor, and hurting
prospects for economic growth. By contrast, proponents commonly argue that
effective regulation of political finance can have many beneficial consequences,
including strengthening equitable party competition, principles of transparency
and accountability in public life, and the overall integrity of the electoral process.
During the last two decades, for all these reasons, the issues of the most effec-
tive regulation of political finance, and the prevention of corrupt practices in the
public sector, have risen to the top of the governance agenda for the international
community and for many domestic reformers.

1
2 Introduction

To address these important challenges, this book focuses upon three related
questions:

1. What types of public policies are commonly employed to regulate the role of
money in politics?
2. What triggers major political finance reforms?
3. When countries implement reforms, what works, what fails, and why?

To consider these issues, section 1.1 of this chapter starts by describing the
evolving research agenda on money in politics, highlighting important advances
during recent decades. Section 1.2 establishes our conceptual typology, which
identifies four common public policies used to regulate political finance in states
worldwide, including laws establishing disclosure requirements, contribution
caps, spending limits, and public funding. As well as distinct categories, the use
of these policies can also be conceptualized as part of a continuum reflecting the
formal degree of regulation of political finance in each country, ranging respec-
tively from laissez-​faire to state management. Cases described in this book can
be observed to zigzag across the spectrum during recent decades, often expand-
ing control of political finance (at least on paper) but sometimes shifting toward
deregulation. Section 1.3 outlines how the book explores these issues. Detailed
descriptions of historical developments in diverse case studies provide inductive
insights, and these are combined with the systematic analysis of several propo-
sitions using cross-​national sources of evidence, producing a mixed-​method
research design. Section 1.4 provides a roadmap of successive chapters in the rest
of the book.

1.1. The Evolving Research Agenda: Advances

in Data, Lags in Theory
This study builds on the extensive research literature on political finance. This
has been marked in recent decades by detailed studies of campaign funding
in particular established democracies (especially the United States), several
regional comparisons, and important advances in cross-​national data moni-
toring political finance laws and practices around the world. Despite progress,
several notable lags persist in the subfield, including in developing comprehen-
sive theoretical frameworks, forging sharp conceptual tools and classificatory
schema, and gathering cross-​national time-​series evidence about changes in
political finance regulation.
The historical roots of attempts to reform the role of money in politics date
from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when local campaigns in corrupt
boroughs in Great Britain and municipalities in the United States were rife with
 Introduction 3

bribery, vote-​buying and treating, nepotism, and patronage politics (La Raja
2008). Progressive attempts to clean up machine politics led to some of the ear-
liest work on the role of money in American elections in pioneering studies by
James Pollock (1926), Louise Overacker (1932), and Alexander Heard (1960).
Similarly, Harry Hanham (1959) and Cornelius O’Leary (1962) provided his-
torical accounts describing attempts to stamp out rotten boroughs and corrupt
electoral practices in Britain as the franchise gradually expanded and the costs
of electioneering rose during the nineteenth century, including reforms through
meritocratic recruitment into the civil service following the 1854 Northcote-​
Trevelyan report, the adoption in 1872 of the Australian (secret) ballot, and the
1883 Corrupt Practices Act.
To expand the comparative framework, in the early 1960s a global net-
work of scholars was established through the International Political Science
Association’s study group (and subsequent research committee) Political Finance
and Political Corruption, founded by Richard Rose and Arnold J. Heidenheimer
(Heidenheimer 1963, 1970). Herb Alexander took over leadership of the group
in the early 1970s, when research developed on the causes and consequences of
political finance laws (Pinto-​Duschinsky 2008). This network published several
edited books offering country-​by-​country chapters presenting qualitative his-
torical case studies (Alexander 1979a, 1979b; Gunlicks 1993). The literature on
campaign finance reform remained most extensive in studies of American poli-
tics, although comparisons were also increasingly drawn with political finance in
other established democracies, such as Canada, France, Israel, and Japan (see, for
example, Paltiel 1981).
The subfield was affected by several developments that swept through the study
of comparative politics during the 1990s, including processes of democratization
and regime change following the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent events in
the Arab uprisings, expanding the conventional comparative framework in elec-
toral studies, as well as the rise of Big Data and the collection of several large-​
scale cross-​national data sets. These developments catalyzed a second generation
of research literature on political finance that moves well beyond the universe of
postindustrial societies and Western democracies to compare money in politics
in a far broader range of developing countries and regions across the world. This
process has been facilitated by the growing availability of cross-​national data sets,
as well as the use of more systematic analytical scientific methods, which can ide-
ally be blended in mixed-​method research designs to supplement process-​tracing
case studies.
One major catalyst for these developments has been the role of the international
development community, as the issue of corruption has moved center stage in
attempts to strengthen democratic governance. The problem of regulating politi-
cal finance raises broader issues for democratic governance than corruption alone,
although obviously acts such as rent-​seeking, bribery, and vote-​buying undermine
4 Introduction

electoral integrity. In the decade since the UN Convention on Corruption came

into force in 2005, this has been endorsed by 140 member states, generating new
domestic legislation seeking to implement international commitments.2 The
international community became more concerned about the deeply damaging
consequences of corruption for economic growth and aid effectiveness during
the mid-​1990s, when the World Bank highlighted the issue under the leadership
of Paul D. Wolfowitz. To monitor systematic evidence of “good governance,” the
World Bank Institute compiled six new measures, including “control of corrup-
tion,” in 215 economies from 1996 to 2013. 3 Transparency International (TI)
pioneered a range of annual indicators, including publishing a groundbreaking
annual Corruption Perception Index (starting in 1995), the Bribe Payer’s Index
on the “supply-​side” (1999–​), and the Global Corruption Barometer, monitoring
public opinion (2003–​), as well as highlighting political corruption in a global
report (Transparency International 2004). Global Integrity expanded the avail-
able expert measures, first publishing its Index in 2004.4 More detailed statistical
indicators of corruption in the public and private sectors have therefore become
more plentiful to compare this phenomenon across countries and sectors.
International organizations have also issued several reports and handbooks on
the legal regulation of political finances, mainly comparing case studies in emerg-
ing economies and developing countries. This includes publications produced by
the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) (Ohman 2012, 2013),
the Council of Europe (van Biezen 2003), and the Organization of American
States (Gutierrez and Zovatto 2011). During the last decade scholars have also
expanded regional comparisons, including in Latin America and postcommunist
Europe (see, for example, Nassmacher 2001, 2009; Alexander and Shiratori 2004;
Casas-​Zamora 2005; Malamud and Posada Carbo 2005; Ewing and Issacharoff
2006; Smilov and Toplak 2008; Koss 2010; Mendilow 2012, 2014).
Statistical evidence about political finance has also greatly expanded. As
described in more detail in section 1.3 of this chapter, the major data sets include
the International IDEA Political Finance Database (IDEA-​PFD) (2002, 2012),
Global Integrity’s Money, Politics and Transparency indices, and the Electoral
Integrity Project’s campaign finance index. These resources allow replication and
robustness tests across several indices produced by independent agencies, thereby
improving the reliability and external validity of scientific evidence. Another
important related development has been the compilation of new legal databases
designed to monitor party finance regulations in Europe. 5 To understand cul-
tural attitudes toward political corruption, several major cross-​national surveys
have started to monitor public opinion toward electoral integrity and citizen’s
experiences of corruption in many parts of the world, including Transparency
International’s Global Corruption Barometer, the EuroBarometer, the World
Values Survey, the Afro-​barometer, the Gallup World Poll, Latin America Public
Opinion (LAPOP), and the Global barometers.6 These resources all represent
 Introduction 5

major advances in the Big Data revolution, expanding cross-​national compari-

sons, although unfortunately similar systematic longitudinal evidence is still
unavailable to analyze trends over time in the legal regulation of political finance
around the world.
Therefore, the last quarter-​century has seen major advances in what we know
about political finance rules. Researchers have described diverse cases of cam-
paign finance reform, mapping formal legal frameworks across different countries
around the world, as well as using expert and public perceptions to monitor de
facto practices. There has also been progress in understanding informal prac-
tices and cultural norms, for example citizen’s perceptions of bribery and vote-​
buying, through surveys monitoring public attitudes and behavior. The growth of
cross-​national indicators has also started to facilitate comparative studies linking
political finance rules with patterns of mass and elite attitudes and behavior. For
example, macro-​level or multilevel models comparing societies can be used to test
whether, ceteris paribus, more stringent formal rules governing money in politics
correlate positively with public satisfaction with democracy, voter turnout, or citi-
zen’s perceptions of corruption.
Despite progress through this growing body of statistical evidence and the
expanding comparative framework, however, relatively little has been established
with any certainty about why major legal reforms are implemented in any state,
including the roles of governing and opposition parties, social movements and
interest groups, public opinion, lobbying groups, and the international com-
munity. Despite the availability of new comparative evidence, in-​depth narra-
tive case studies describing the evolution of political finance rules in particular
countries remain the predominant approach in the literature. Still less is known
about the systematic consequences of implementing major new laws, although
rosy assumptions about their positive impacts can be questioned. For example,
recent studies concluded that in general most campaign finance reforms failed
to encourage any improvements in popular perceptions of corruption and levels
of civic engagement (Bowler and Donovan 2011, 2013). The authors suggest that
the rhetorical claims of advocates of legal reforms often exaggerate the concrete
impacts achieved by the new policies. Moreover, several unintended negative
effects from reforms have also been observed (Clift and Fisher 2004). For exam-
ple, new requirements requiring disclosure by party donors in Britain have made
it easier for scandals to come to light in the news headlines, potentially damaging
public confidence (Heerde-​Hudson and Fisher 2011). Similarly, attempts to clean
electoral registration rolls have been found to disenfranchise citizens and thereby
depress voter turnout (Schaffer 2002, 2008).
The cases compared in subsequent chapters suggest that the links between
formal laws and informal cultural norms is also complex and far from straight-
forward to disentangle. For example, political finance is heavily regulated by law
in Russia, yet experts suggest that a culture of corruption and the abuse of state
6 Introduction

resources remain deeply entrenched (White 2011). By contrast, Sweden has had
minimal legal disclosure requirements in the past, yet a deep-​seated culture of
financial probity and relatively widespread public trust in the honesty of public
officials remains the norm (see ­chapter 9).
It is important to tackle all the issues at the heart of this book to advance the
scholarly research agenda about the catalysts of political finance reform and to
inform practical policy debates about the consequences of alternative policy
options. The questions outlined earlier raise progressively more difficult and
complex issues, however, and there are no easy answers. Thus it is more straight-
forward to describe the public policies and the major changes to laws governing
political finance in each country than to nail down the exact reasons why land-
mark reforms were passed. In terms of “what works,” it is also possible to evalu-
ate the immediate effect of legislation on short-​term policy outputs, for instance,
where laws establish new administrative agencies and procedural guidelines,
for example concerning campaign spending caps or party subsidies. It is more
challenging to determine medium-​term policy outcomes, such as establishing
the effects of these regulations on subsequent levels of party expenditure or
candidate communications. It is even harder to prove their long-​term impacts,
including whether such initiatives achieve the stated goals of proponents, for
example by restoring public trust, reducing the power of big lobbyists, or level-
ing the playing field for party competition. For multiple reasons, as with many
other types of public policies, legal electoral reforms often fail to achieve their
goals (Bowler and Donovan 2013), leaving a substantial implementation gap
between de jure legal frameworks and de facto regulations.
For all these reasons, the state of contemporary research does not yet provide
clear-​cut answers about the consequences of reforms that could provide practi-
cal guidance to policymakers when seeking to evaluate “best practices” against
a variety of benchmarks. As a review of the state of the literature by Scarrow
(2007) summarized the situation, theory has tended to lag behind mounting
empirical evidence. There is no established consensus about which public policies
have proved most effective in regulating political and campaign finance—​and
which have largely failed to meet their objectives. This book therefore presents
the accounts developed by a wide range of international experts to address these
issues and generate new insights.

1.2. The Policy Typology and Concepts

Before considering the evidence and research design, it helps to delineate the core
concepts used in the book. Our understanding reflects a broad understanding of
this concept. It follows IDEA-​PFD, which defines political finance as encompass-
ing “all financial flows to and from political parties and candidates. It includes
 Introduction 7

formal and informal income and expenditure, as well as financial and in-​k ind con-
tributions. These transactions are not limited to a certain time period” (IDEA
2014). The comprehensive definition, encompassing both campaigns and regu-
lar party funds, is also the one adopted by regional organizations such as the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE 2011) Moreover,
the topic includes the financial value of in-​k ind gifts and subsidies, as well as vol-
untary services.
An alternative, somewhat narrower definition of political finance offered
by Pinto-​Duschinsky (2002), and promoted by the International Foundation
for Electoral Systems (IFES 2013), is that of “money for electioneering.” This
includes money spent by candidates for public office, by political parties, and by
other individuals and organized groups. One problem with focusing exclusively
upon campaign finance is that there is often an unclear distinction between
campaign costs and routine expenses such as the ongoing costs of maintain-
ing permanent offices, carrying out policy research, grass-​roots organizing and
voter registration, and engaging in political dialogue. In practice, it remains
difficult to draw a precise line between the resources used for routine political
activities, such as building local party organizations, conducting polls, paying
research staff, or contacting supporters, and those used for electioneering dur-
ing the official campaign period. It also makes little sense for comparative stud-
ies to focus only upon income and expenditures during the official campaign,
since this may extend over an extended period of more than a year in countries
using primaries and general elections, including the United States (thus sharply
increasing costs), while occurring with snap elections for just three or four
weeks in other countries. The international community has also moved away
from understanding elections as a specific event around polling day toward the
broader notion of an election cycle.7 Given the observed rise of the so-​called
permanent campaign, the terms “political finance” and “campaign finance” are
thus often used interchangeably in the literature. Building upon these consid-
erations, therefore, this book prefers a more comprehensive notion of political
finance that includes the use of funds by political actors throughout the whole
electoral cycle, including during the precampaign phase, the campaign, polling
day, and its aftermath.

1.2.1. Typology of Political Finance Policies

Building upon this basis, several common types of political finance regulations
can be identified. Four main categories can be distinguished—​each employed
singly or in combination—​ including disclosure requirements, contribution
limits, spending caps, and public subsidies.8 Estimates for how far these policies
are used in 177 countries worldwide are derived from International IDEA-​PFD
(2014).
8 Introduction

1.2.2. Disclosure Requirements

The first category of disclosure requirements aims to affect the accountability
of political actors through rules requiring financial reporting and transparency.
The IDEA-​PFD estimate is that almost three-​quarters of all countries worldwide
(126, or 70%) now require political parties to submit regular quarterly or annual
financial reports. These policies are designed to reduce the anonymity of “dark
money.” They usually stipulate requirements for the disclosure of donor identi-
ties, donation amounts, or spending accounts or some combination thereof. The
principles reflect international agreements, as endorsed in Article 7(3) of the
United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which obligates sig-
natory states to make good-​faith efforts to improve transparency in candidate and
political party financing. The main policy instrument for achieving transparency
is political finance disclosure through requiring the submission of timely and
regular public reports to an independent supervisory body with monitoring and
auditing powers, including appropriate and reasonable sanction for noncompli-
ance. The main administrative agency is usually the electoral management body,
or else an auditing office, government ministry, or electoral court. This policy
assumes that public information will reach the general public indirectly via civic
society monitoring watchdog organizations and the news media, as well as being
made directly available online for citizens, allowing voters to cast their ballots
accordingly.
In India, for example, reforms since 2003 have attempted to increase trans-
parency in politics. As ­chapter 4 in this volume discusses, this change is part of
the right-​to-​information movement that has made considerable headway in India,
including passage of the 2005 Right to Information Act (RTI). Candidates have
been compelled to disclose any criminal, educational, and financial details at
the time of nomination. Legislation has provided tax incentives associated with
disclosure for company political donations. Moreover, under the RTI, political
parties have been compelled to release their income and expenditure records,
expanding information on political finance.
Proponents of disclosure requirements regard public records as essential
to limiting the potential abuse of political funding, analogous to the publica-
tion of annual financial reports by corporations and nonprofit organizations.
Transparency rules typically require that political parties, candidates, and con-
tributors have to disclose financial contributions or expenditures to an electoral
authority such as the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) or the UK Election
Commission, to state audit offices in Eastern Europe, or to judicial tribunals or
parliamentary bodies. With this information a matter of the public record, pro-
ponents argue, parliamentary and judicial oversight bodies, investigative journal-
ists, and civil society watchdog organizations have opportunities to throw light
on the role of money in politics and its potential abuse. For example, the Center
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752

pachymeningitis,

748

Cicatrices, myelitic,

815

Cimicifuga, use of, in chorea,

455

Circular insanity,

151

Circulation, obstructed, as a cause of spinal hyperæmia,

802
Classification of alcoholism,

573

of chronic lead-poisoning,

678

of mental diseases,

105-109

Clavus hystericus,

252

Cleanliness, importance in cerebral hemorrhage and apoplexy,

977
Climate, change of, value in neurasthenia,

358

in neuralgia,

1223

in spinal sclerosis,

903

influence on causation of chronic lead-poisoning,

680

of epilepsy,

474

of hystero-epilepsy,

291

of thermic fever,

389
Climate and season, influence on causation of chorea,

444

of hysteria,

218

Climacteric insanity,

173

period, cerebral hyperæmia in,

771

Climatic and atmospheric conditions, influence on causation of

tetanus,

544
Clonic spasms, in nervous diseases,

45

Clonus, significance in nervous diseases,

54

Clot, of intracranial hemorrhage, changes in,

920

Club-foot, in family form of tabes dorsalis,

871

in infantile spinal paralysis,

1127

Coca and cocaine, habitual addiction to,

667

use of, in alcoholism,

643

646

in the opium habit,

676

Cod-liver oil, use of, in chronic alcoholism,

644

646

hydrocephalus,

775

in general paralysis of the insane,

201

in neuralgia,

1224

in tubercular meningitis,

735

Cold, influence on causation of Bell's palsy,

1203

of congestion of spinal membranes,

747

of neuralgia,

1219

of neuritis,

1190
 of tetanus,

544

use of, in concussion of the brain,

911

in external pachymeningitis,

706

in thermic fever,

396-398

Cold and wet, as a cause of disseminated sclerosis,

884

of tabes dorsalis,

855
Cold pack, use of, in cerebral anæmia,

789

Colic, of chronic lead-poisoning,

683

Coma,

382

785

alcoholic, characters of,

589

598

description of, in nervous diseases,

26-28

in abscess of the brain,

796

in acute spinal meningitis,

750

in cerebral anæmia,

785

in chronic lead-poisoning,

688

in tubercular meningitis,

727

Complicating insanity,

174
Complications of hysteria,

258

of progressive muscular atrophy with atrophic spinal paralysis,

1149

unilateral facial atrophy,

699

of tumors of the brain,

1045

spinal cord,

1106

Compression of nerve-trunks, in hystero-epilepsy,

310
Concussion of the brain,

908

spinal cord,

912

Condition of brain in sleep,

775

Confusional insanity, primary,

167

Congestion of cerebral dura mater,

704
 of pia mater,

715

of spinal meningitis,

746

Conium, use of, in chorea,

455

in paralysis agitans,

438

in tetanus,

557

Conjunctivitis in the chloral habit,

664

,
665

Consciousness, double, in nervous diseases,

28

loss of, in cerebral hemorrhage and apoplexy,

933

in nervous diseases,

26

in occlusion of cerebral vessels,

952

perverted, in catalepsy,

320

Constitutional diseases, influence on causation of neuralgia,

1217

affective mental disease,

142

Constipation in chronic hydrocephalus,

743

in chronic lead colic,

683

in tubercular meningitis,

725

729

736

in tumors of the brain,

1045

Constriction about waist, sense of, in acute spinal pachymeningitis,

747

in disseminated sclerosis,

874

in spinal meningeal hemorrhage,

752

in spinal syphilis,

1025

in tabes dorsalis,

829

in tumors of spinal cord,

1093
Contact-sense in tabes dorsalis,

833

Contractures, hysterical,

244

in disseminated sclerosis,

888

in hemiplegia,

962

in hystero-epilepsy,

297

in infantile spinal paralysis,

1127
 in inflammation of the brain,

791

in secondary sclerosis,

987

in tumors of the brain,

1039

Convulsions in abscess of the brain,

796

in atrophy of the brain,

994

in chronic lead-poisoning,

688
 in hysteria,

236

in infantile spinal paralysis,

1116

in spina bifida,

759

in thrombosis of cerebral veins and sinuses,

986

in tubercular meningitis,

728

in tumors of the brain,

1039

Convulsive disorders, local,

461

form of acute alcoholism,

593

Co-ordination, disturbance of, in tabes dorsalis,

830-833

in family form of tabes dorsalis,

871

Copodyscinesia (see

Writers and Artisans, Neural Disorders of

).

Cord, spinal, lesions of, in alcoholism,

622