Political Finance And State Funding Systems: An Overview

The relation between money and politics has come to be one of the great problems of democratic government. Thus James Kerr Pollock opened his pioneering study of political finance practices in Britain, Germany and France, published in 1932. His dictum, as well as his call for public opinion to realise "That healthy political life is not possible as long as the use of money is unrestrained," ring truer today than in Pollock's time. Successive waves of democratisation, an increased complexity in electoral processes, and the growing awareness of the risks posed by corruption to the viability of democratic institutions have moved the funding of political activity to the centre of public debates all over the world. The issue has become both global and pressing.