Problems of Party and Campaign Financing in Germany and the United States--Some Comparative Reflections

Abstract

The alleged undue influence of interest groups used to be and is one of the most critical problems in campaign and party financing in the United States and the Federal Republic. This chapter focuses on some issues which are debated vigorously in the United States and Germany. The party finance scandals in Germany have been about tax evasion, fraud, and in a very few instances corruption; they were not about illegally high amounts of donations. Corporate as well as union contributions are much more decentralized in the US than in Germany, paralleling the decentralized structure of American interest groups. In Germany public funding has been largely a reaction to increasing campaign costs. The party leadership in Germany should be made more accountable to the membership in financial matters. In both countries there is considerable suspicion that both candidates and parties depend financially on interest groups.