Party Funding and Campaign Financing in International Perspective: (Columbia London Law Series)

This volume deals with questions of political party funding and campaign financing, issues which arouse controversy in many parts of the world. 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? And, how may they spend money in furtherance of their political objectives? The aim of this volume, the first in a new series of Columbia University/London University collaborative projects, is to explore these issues in the specific context of a number of national settings.The studies presented here show that financing questions cannot be addressed independent of the constitutional conventions of the country, the nature of the political parties in the country, and the means of access to publication and the media in any given nation. The national studies in this volume reveal a rich diversity in the approach to regulation in Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, Quebec, the United Kingdom and the United States. The topicality of the issues considered is reflected in the fact that since the book was first mooted there have been major decisions of the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Canada, as well as an investigation and report by the Electoral Commission in the United Kingdom, all of which have a direct bearing on the legal and policy issues discussed in this book.

Table of Contents:
1 Introduction Part I 'Light Touch' Regulation and its Discontents 2 The Regulation of Campaign Funding in New Zealand: Practices, Problems and Prospects for Change Andrew Geddis Part II 'Big Bang' Regulation of a Private Funding Regime 3 Regulation of Political Funding under the United Kingdom's Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 - And Beyond? Navraj Ghaleigh 4 The Disclosure of Political Donations in Britain - New Regulation, Old Problems K D Ewing 5 Access to the Airwaves and Equality: The Case against Media Political Advertising on the Broadcast Media Jacob Rowbottom Part III From State Regulation to State Funding 6 Political Finance Law and Electoral Funding in Australia Graeme Orr 7 The Growing Importance of Public Funding in Japan Akiko Ejima 8 Financing Parties at the Grass - Roots Level: The Quebec Experience Louis Massicotte Part IV Regulation and Judicial Review 9 Throwing in the Towel: The Constitutional Morass of Campaign Finance Samuel Issacharoff 10 Soft Money, Congress, and the Supreme Court Richard Briffault 11 The Law of American Party Finance Nathaniel Persily Part V Regulation and Judicial Review: Divergent Paths 12 The Supreme Court of Canada's Political Theory and the Constitutionality of the Political Finance Regime Colin Feasby 13 Elections, Democracy, and Free Speech: More at Stake than an Unfettered Right to Advertise Janet L Hiebert Part VI Starting from Scratch 14 Political Parties in the European Union: Towards a European Party Statute? Stephen Day and Jo Shaw

About the Author :
K.D. Ewing is Professor of Public Law, Kings College, London. Samuel Issacharoff, formerly the Harold R Medina Professor of Procedural Jurisprudence at Columbia Law School, is currently the Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law.

Review :
...the book is accessible and authoritative, providing not only valuable insights into a range of funding regimes but also fascinating discussions of the theoretical underpinnings of regulation within political systems based on the freedoms of speech and expression and judicial interpretations of the constitutionality or, otherwise, of various modes of regulation. It should provide a basic resource not only for public lawyers interested in such issues but also a wide range of others from a variety of disciplines concerned with the role of money in politics and elections...if you are interested in the issues, read this excellent book. …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... a superior survey of contemporary struggles with issues of campaign finance in several countries. …a valuable book as it presents the major arguments of the debate. ...draws together an international team of fine scholars, especially from member countries of the Commonwealth, such as New Zealand, Canada, and Australia...For academic lawyers and political scientists in the United States, [this] edition will be particularly useful because of its mainly non-American approach.