Investigates the problems common to democracies seeking to regulate uses of money in election campaigns and, to a lesser extent, considers the role of public funding.

This book is an in-depth exploration of political finances in and among mature and developing democracies of the world of politics in most continents: Japan and South Korea in Asia; Brazil in South America; Mexico and the United States in North America; and Italy, Germany, and Spain in Europe.

This text covers political finance systems and direct state funding in Costa Rica and Uraguay as well as state funding and campaign finance practices in those countries.

Illustrated by in-depth empirical research from six country studies, Gendered Electoral Financing: Money, Power and Representation in Comparative Perspective is the first cross-regional examination of the nexus between money, gender and political recruitment across the world. Money is assumingly one of the greatest barriers to women in the political recruitment process. The financial disadvantage of women is expected to constitute an obstacle for women’s entry into politics everywhere and especially in developing countries where women’s socio-economic status is disproportionately low relative to men’s. This line of reasoning has caused a global upswing in both candidate- and party-directed financial schemes introduced to enhance gender balance in political office. This book develops a typology of different kinds of gendered electoral financing schemes and builds theories about its causes and consequences. By comparing how gendered electoral financing affects political recruitment processes in both established and emerging democracies, the authors identify whether and how the funding mechanisms incentivize a shift in political behavior. Gendered Electoral Financing is a timely, informative and well-written book that does an excellent job of explaining, in language accessible to students and researchers alike, the cost of elections, gender imbalance in political office and the effects of financial incentive mechanisms to increase women’s representation in politics.

"The Electoral Integrity Project: why elections fail and what we can do about it."

The term "foundation" indicates the natural base on which a certain structure rests as well as an institution designed to support something useful. Both connotations apply to the contents of this book. Political finance deals with the "mother's milk of politics" and focuses on key issues of democracy. The use of money as a political resource confronts the unequal distribution of wealth in modern societies with the democratic principle. Part A of the volume presents comparative analyses of political income and expenditure in Western Democracies, Japan and Israel. Part B deals with major impacts and the work of political finance regimes, e.g. on participation, linkage and controls of political spending. Part C discusses whether the western model of democracy can provide an adequate orientation for the consolidation of democracies in India, Latin America and East Central Europe and presents efforts to strengthen democracy by means of foundations. Part D contains an extensive Bibliography on Political Finance. The editor is Professor for Political Science at the Carl-von-Ossietzky University, Oldenburg, Germany. He has chaired the IPSA Research Committee on Political Finance and Political Corruption from 1994 to 2000.