The complexion of political finance in the mature democratic nations has undergone significant changes in the last two decades. Spurred in some cases by scandal, in others by the rapidly escalating costs of politics, many governments have enacted new laws to regulate or to alter their national systems of political finance. Among these reforms are laws governing disclosure, transparency, expenditure and contribution limits, as well as direct forms of public subsidies to parties and candidates.

Concurrently, while scholarship concerning reforms in individual countries has flourished, there has been a paucity of literature addressing itself to comparative themes: the two most recent book-length texts on the subject were Comparative Political Finance: A Symposium, edited by Richard Rose and Arnold J. Heidenheimer as a special issue of the Journal of Politics in 1963; and a book, edited by Arnold J. Heidenheimer, Comparative Political Finance: The Financing of Party Organizations and Election Campaigns (Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1970). The present volume seeks to address this gap in the comparative literature on political finance.

The two chapters which frame this book – written by myself and Karl – Heinz Nassmacher – deal with comparative themes. The other eight chapters are case studies of political finance in individual countries. This is a representative group of countries and authors: Michael Pinto-Duschinsky writes on British political funding, Khayyam Zev Paltiel on Canada, Ernest A. Chaples on Australia, myself on the United States, Jonathan Mendilow on Israel, Hans-Peter Schneider on the Federal Republic of Germany, Pilar del Castillo on Spain, Gian Franco Ciaurro on Italy, and Ruud Koole on the Netherlands.