PARTY FUNDING AND CAMPAIGN FINANCING IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

by Keith Ewing and Samuel Issacharoff (eds). Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart Publishing, 2006. 342pp. Hardback. $80.00/£40.00. ISBN: 1-84113-570-4.

Reviewed by Mark Rush, Department of Politics, Washington and Lee University. Email: RushM [at] wlu.edu

pp.689-692

Political “corruption” takes many forms, ranging from the basic quid pro quo exchange of political favors for influence to the more subtle (and perhaps more damaging) inequality of political influence that results from inequality of wealth. The weapons that democratic governments have on hand to combat these ills range from outright criminal sanction to regulating the flow of money into and then out of the hands of political parties, their candidates, or both. In PARTY FUNDING AND CAMPAIGN FINANCING IN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE, Keith Ewing and Samuel Issacharoff have assembled a provocative collection of essays that touch upon efforts in Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, United States and the European Union to control the corrupting impact of money on the political process.

The essays are organized around several dichotomies concerning the manner in which campaign spending can or should be regulated. At the outset, Issacharoff and Ewing set forth the “core dilemmas” of campaign spending regulation in all democratic societies. First, “How are the central actors in the political arena supposed to gather the funds necessary to operate effectively on behalf of their chosen political ends?” Second, “how may they spend money in furtherance of their chosen political ends” (p.1)? They then set forth the parameters that frame their discussion. Nations seem generally to have three regulatory options when it comes to campaign spending: outright regulation, laissez faire or “non-regulatory intervention” such as transparency requirements (p.3). They may attack campaign spending from the supply side by regulating the flow of funds to candidates and parties, or they my do so from the demand side by establishing spending limits and thereby reducing the need for funding sources (pp.3-4).

Finally, a nation may base its campaign finance system on public or private funding. The editors note that this aspect of the campaign spending debate is laden with irony. As the state seems to have withered and political parties seem to be losing relevance (due, e.g., to falling voter turnout and party membership), the former is being asked to channel funds into the latter. Hence, they ask whether the state is essentially being asked to transfer life support from voters to the dying political organizations that they have abandoned.

The book organizes the countries it addresses along the lines of a “regulatory trajectory” (pp.8-9), ranging from the “primitive” model of “imperfect transparency rules” in New Zealand, to the systems of “intense direct regulation” in the UK, to the hybrid public/private funding systems in Australia, Japan and Quebec. The editors acknowledge that the trajectory is rough and its categories are imperfect. [*690] In the end, though, they note that a unifying theme across all of the nations in the study is “the surprisingly high level of discontent” (p.10) among scholars who study them.

The strength of the collection lies in its diversity. The book is organized into fourteen chapters split across six subsections. In the space of this review it is impossible to do justice to each chapter. But, they fall into two broad categories, with the exception of a concluding chapter on political parties in the EU by Stephen Dan and Jo Shaw. While intriguing, it is included at the end and serves more as a codicil to, than a coordinated part of, the rest of the volume. Those chapters dealing with countries other than the United States and Canada tend more towards historical analysis of the development of campaign spending law. They discuss examples of particular scandalous events or corrupt practices that gave rise to changes in the electoral law, and they usually offer a skeptical assessment of the success of their nation’s campaign spending regimes. Briffault’s analysis of “soft money” in the United States and the development of recent American case law falls in this category as well.

The chapters by Issacharoff and Persily dealing with American law and those by Feasby and Hiebert on Canada address broader issues of democratic theory and how courts conceive of particular aspects of it. Thus, they address the scope and definition of the notion of corruption, the tension between egalitarian and libertarian impulses in the development of campaign spending law, the nature and definition of political parties, and so forth. In so doing, they provide a conceptual framework in which to assess the efforts to curb the impact of campaign spending discussed in the other chapters.

Even the most interested scholar of campaign spending may find the level of detail in the essays as overwhelming as it is vital to an understanding of the political milieu of the country to which a particular chapter is dedicated. To appreciate the particular events that gave rise to campaign spending reform impulses in the different nations, it is necessary to gain an appreciation of the political context in which scandal, sleaze and reform occur. Accordingly, the reference to the amount of detail is not offered as a criticism. It is meant only to recognize the meticulous care with which the essays are presented. Thus, the broad commonalities of the essays—clear descriptions of lamentable political practices, thoughtful accounts of well-intentioned attempts to remedy them, and acknowledgments of the limits of such reform attempts—will impress even the most disinterested scholar. Indeed, they demonstrate the pervasiveness of concern across nations and cultures with controlling corruption and preserving the integrity of the democratic process.

The conceptual framework in the other four chapters nicely sets forth the tensions and contradictions in democratic theory that render attempts to regulate the political process so controversial. Issacharoff addresses the questions of democratic theory posed by the conflict of interest inherent in any attempt by incumbent political powers to regulate the political process. The self-interest (or, at least, the drive for self-preservation) [*691] of incumbent legislators renders any attempt to constrain political speech and spending suspect. In this respect, Issacharoff draws upon the concerns raised by John Hart Ely when he set forth his theory of judicial review in DEMOCRACY AND DISTRUST.

The chapters by Canadian scholars, Janet Hiebert and Colin Feasby, evince an intriguing contrast to the chapters on the other countries. Whereas the other chapters are more or less neutral with regard to the United States and one, in particular (Ejima’s chapter on Japan) speaks somewhat favorably about it disclosure provisions, Hiebert and Feasby note that Canadian scholars have sought to distance themselves from it. In so doing, they contrast the individualism of the American Supreme Court’s approach to campaign spending restrictions with the Canadian Court’s more egalitarian approach to political and electoral rights. Yet, despite the contrasts they draw, Feasby finishes his chapter by noting that the Canadian Court’s egalitarian approach to politics is “impoverished” (p.268) by its lack of attention to competitiveness and the extent to which so-called reform measures may diminish it. In this respect, his essay ends up touching upon the same issues noted by Issacharoff.

What one takes away from this volume is an appreciation for the common struggle against corruption in which political scientists and lawmakers engage around the world. All of the writers share dissatisfaction with the campaign spending laws of the countries they study. Yet, none is able to offer reform suggestions that do much more than pose marginal changes to existing campaign finance laws or would force their nations to sacrifice one democratic value for another. Clearly, no country has yet managed to construct a corpus of campaign spending laws that both maximizes diversity of opinion and minimizes inequality of political power (borne of inequality of either wealth or political acumen).

In toto, the volume demonstrates that the campaign spending debate is now caught in a contradiction. On the one hand, government must pass the regulations necessary to control either outright quid pro quo corruption or the equally pernicious, but perhaps less subtle corruption that arises from political or economic inequality. On the [*692] other hand, insofar as government actors are also the sources and beneficiaries of corruption, any law they pass is now subject to question.

This is, of course, more of an intellectual than a practical observation. Anti-corruption laws must emanate from the legislature. But, this does seem to render the study of campaign spending regulation a reactive instead of a proactive endeavor. The volume demonstrates that attempts to pre-empt corrupt practices or to control the impact of wealth in advance are bound to fall short of their goals or generate controversy. Granted, some rules (such as disclosure laws) might generate procedures that will, at least, publicize the sources of monetary influence. But, as the nation-specific essays demonstrate, the “hydraulic theory” of campaign spending is still relevant: money will find its own way. On the other hand, so long as statutes are clearly written, we can, at least, look to the courts to prosecute violators of campaign spending laws even though their authors might benefit from them. While this might provide some basis for assuaging the discontent among the contributors, it is clear that reliance on the criminal justice system does more to punish than prevent campaign spending abuses.

The clear lesson from the studies in this volume is that a particular nation’s approach to campaign spending depends upon which of the many strains of democratic theory characterize its political and constitutional traditions. Whether and how a country balances or emphasizes individual rights, party government, egalitarianism, and so on, will have a determinative impact on how it approaches matters of campaign spending.

In closing, this is a superior survey of contemporary struggles with issues of campaign finance in several countries. It offers the newcomer to the field a sound theoretical and practical introduction and will offer the experienced practitioner a valuable reference to the countries that it covers.

REFERENCE:
Ely, John Hart. 1980. DEMOCRACY AND DISTRUST: A THEORY OF JUDICIAL REVIEW. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

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© Copyright 2006 by the author, Mark Rush.