Wahlkampffinanzierung und Demokratie in den USA

US election campaigns have always attracted enormous amounts of money. But when the Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that bans on donations from corporations, interest groups and individuals were unconstitutional, it marked nothing less than a watershed moment in US campaign financing.

But what are the consequences of unlimited campaign contributions: Can elections, as is often claimed, in fact be bought so that the candidate with the most money always wins? What effects do election campaigns worth billions of dollars have on citizens’ trust and participation, but also on the overall functioning of the political system?

This book deals with these and other questions, in particular with the help of quantitative empirical methods. It appears that although money is a precondition for electoral success, it is not automatically a deciding factor. Nevertheless, campaign money can also undermine the proper functioning of US democracy in other places.