Details

Subject(s)

• Campaign funds—Law and legislation—United States [Browse]
• Political action committees—United States [Browse]
• Pressure groups—United States [Browse]

Series

• Book collections on Project MUSE. [More in this series]
• UPCC book collections on Project MUSE. Archive Political Science and Policy Studies Foundation. [More in this series]

Medium/​Support

polychrome. rdacc http://rdaregistry.info/termList/RDAColourContent/1003

Summary note

• Why is there still so much dissatisfaction with the role of special interest groups in financing American election campaigns, even though no aspect of interest group politics has been so thoroughly regulated and constrained?
• This book argues that the campaign finance laws prevent many citizen groups from forming effective political action committees (PACs) - organizations created by interest groups to raise and spend money in elections - while the regulations are less of an obstacle to business groups in forming PACs. This results, the author asserts, in a campaign finance system which is biased in favor of economic interests. The author argues that the laws regulating PACs ignore the real difficulties of political mobilization - problems that political scientists have expounded in both theoretical and empirical analyses of collective action.
• The author concludes that our campaign finance laws reflect a fundamental discrepancy between our ideals about the role of small individual contributors and the real ways in which broadly based groups actually get organized. Deregulating group activity, the author suggests, may be the only way to promote pluralism and reduce the dominance of the campaign finance system by economic institutions.
• . Gais makes a significant contribution to the literature on interest groups, election and campaign finance reform, and the role of money in politics. This volume will interest specialists in American politics, collective action, the role of business in politics and public choice as well as policymakers involved in campaign finance reform.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Reproduction note

Electronic reproduction. New York Available via World Wide Web.

System details

Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002.

Source of description

Description based on print version record.

Language note

English.

ISBN

• 9780472027378 (ebook)
• 0472027379
• 1282765647
• 9781282765641
• 9786612765643
• 661276564X

LCCN

2020706667

Other standard number

• 10.3998/mpub.14656

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