Party funding, competition law and the protection of political democracy

Posted by Social Science Research Network

Party funding, competition law and the protection of political democracy

By Arthur Guerra Filho (King’s College London)

Abstract:      Capitalist democracies are paradoxical: while their political system is premised on equality, their economic system is based on the promise of inequality. Bill Gates’ vote has the same weight as that of any other American citizen. On one hand capitalism is concerned with wealth creation and consumer welfare. On the other hand democracy is concerned with the voters’ equal say in the composition of the government. But what if a merger that will likely benefit consumers militates against equality in the electoral process? In order to address this tension between concentrations in the economic sphere and equality in the electoral process, I propose in this article a political antitrust concerned with the marketplace of speech in elections. The article is organised as follows. Section II argues that there was an historical relationship between party funding and competition laws in countries such as the United States, Germany and Brazil. Section III argues that recent scholarship on political antitrust has been concerned with the indirect influence of economic power over the political democratic process. Section IV suggests a framework for the regulation of direct influence; more precisely the economic power’s influence over the electoral process. I conclude that political antitrust centred on economic power’s influence over elections is promising to capitalist democracies because: (i) it may be useful to complement the party funding laws and media regulations in the protection of political democracy; and (ii) it can be largely harmonised with the standard competition law.

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