Overcoming Political Disenchantment: A New Appreciation of Campaign Finance and Political Parties

Abstract

This dissertation offers a novel argument for the democratic importance of political parties and campaign finance. Taking issue with the United States Supreme Court's campaign finance and political party jurisprudence, which tends to value campaign spending and party activity for the role that they play in expanding voter choice, my account seeks, instead, to emphasize the role that these forms of political participation can play in countering the sense of political disenchantment which characterizes the political attitudes of a large number of American citizens today. I argue in this project that by subjecting their preferences to continuous contestation and challenge, parties and campaign finance can help instill an appreciation for compromise, as well as tolerance for political diversity and disagreement, among the disenchanted. This, in turn, has many beneficial implications for enabling good governance on the part of the American state. In the course of the dissertation, I also specify the many ways in which contemporary parties and campaign finance regimes need to be reformed in order for them to be able to perform this role. Questions of institutional design thus occupy an extremely prominent place in the project.