POLS 3440 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Premiership Of Stephen Harper, Stephen Ledrew, Bagman
5 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
Money is the mother"s milk of politics. Parties, candidates, riding associations and elected members could not survive for more than a day without it. The struggle to regulate and police the flow of money in and out of the political system has preoccupied parliamentarians for decades. Whatever form political organization takes, there is a common problem: how to find sufficient financial resources to fund the activities the political organizations wish to pursue. Competition between political parties divided on ideological, economic, social, factional or ethnic lines depends on finance, drives up the costs of campaigning and intensifies the search for additional or new income streams. Money buys the access, favours, skills, goods and services that are essential to effective party activity. Money compensates for a lack of volunteers and serves, in some societies, as a surrogate for individual commitment. In short, money is a transferable and convertible resource which helps mobilize support for, and secures influence with, political parties.
