ABSTRACT
While it is a worn-out adage that “money is the mother’s milk of politics,” understanding the influence of money in the political process is more difficult than it might appear. While the general wisdom is that only candidates and parties with access to significant funding have a chance to win, the relationship between money and votes is difficult to empirically study. There are a number of factors which contribute to this complexity including the lack of accurate reporting as well as numerous channels for legal and illegal funding. One would expect that understanding the influence of public finance on parties would be much easier since the funds come from the state treasury which should ensure better reporting and greater ease in empirically isolating the effects of finance as a source of party revenue. However as this volume shows, the provision of public finance does not replace private funding but only serves as a supplement. Indeed, empirically understanding the relationship among money, voters and parties is made more difficult with the introduction of a system of public finance not easier. However, if the development of individual parties and the party system as a whole is to be properly understood, then an exploration of the role of finance is critical.
