This book emerged as a product of several meetings of the Research Committee on Political Finance and Political Corruption of the International Political Science Association (IPSA), including those at Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, Oxford, and the 1985 IPSA Convention in Paris. The Research Committee is a network of scholars interested in aspects of the financing of politics in their own countries, countries they study, and on a comparative basis. The Committee is similarly interested in political corruption in all its manifestations. While this text deals only with issues of political finance, the Committee hopes to publish a volume on political corruption in the near future.

Many people contributed their talents and energies to the creation of this volume. Among them, I am happy to give special acknowledgement to Joel Federman, Research Assistant at the Citizens' Research Foundation and a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Southern California. Joel managed the project from its inception, contributed greatly to the editing of each chapter, drafted the introduction and, not least, suggested the title for the volume. His invaluable contribution is also given recognition on the title page.

I am grateful to each of the chapter authors, who met every deadline with aplomb despite the often-great disadvantages of distance. Also greatly appreciated is the patience and cooperation of the IPSA series editors, Richard Merritt, John Trent and Jean A. Laponce, and of Michael Holds worth, our editor at Cambridge University Press.