Political Parties and Elections: Legislating for Representative Democracy

Political Parties and Elections presents a comparative analysis of the ways in which advanced industrial democracies seek to regulate the activities of political parties in electoral contests. Actual political practice suggests that parties are crucial actors in democratic elections, yet the nature and extent to which parties are regulated, or even recognized, as participants in the electoral process varies greatly among nations. Author Anika Gauja analyzes the electoral laws of five key common law democracies with similar parliamentary and representative traditions, similar levels of economic and political development, yet with significantly different electoral provisions: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Using the relationship between law and politics as a lens, the book focuses specifically on the ways in which these jurisdictions seek to regulate the behavior of their political parties as the product of a broader normative vision of how representative democracy ought to function. In its subject matter, comparative scope, and interdisciplinary theoretical framework, this book examines not only electoral law but also ancillary legislation such as funding regulations, associations and corporations law, and constitutional provisions. It also analyzes the case law that guides the interpretation of this legislation. Political Parties and Elections represents an innovative body of research, comparing for the first time the electoral-legal regimes of a significant number of common law nations.

Contents: Public law, political parties and representative democracy: a framework for comparative analysis; Political parties and constitutions; The gradual legal recognition of political parties; Requirements for party registration and internal organization; Regulating party candidate selection contests; Parties and the conduct of elections; The public funding of election campaigns and political parties; The private funding of election campaigns: regulating political donations and expenditures; Parties in Parliament: the independence of the legislature; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.