o political party efforts is also challenging and even impossible in some circumstances. These issues are integral to the present research effort.
It is the purpose of this essay to draw upon the literature in order to compare and contrast political party funding by the government in three countries, each of which is a modern democracy with a nationally elected representative assembly that performs legislative functions. The countries to be compared are the United States, Great Britain, and France. Pinto-Duschinsky and Postnikov (1) commented that in each of these countries, legislative regulations aimed at the limitation of the influence of money on the election process have been forthcoming in recent years. While eliminating many of the traditional sources of campaign finance on which political parties and their candidates have depended, each of these three countries have found it necessary to create new mechanisms for governmental funding of such campaigns. Issues to be considered include the models used in each country for governmental campaign finance, the legislative framework which enables such activity, and the strengths and weaknesses of systems in the three countries.
The United States
Generally, U.S. electoral campaign finance is governed by specific legislation, described by Joseph Cantor as follows:
The 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), as amended in 1974, 1976, and 1979, imposed limits on contributions, required disclosure of campaign receipts and expenditures, and set up the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as a central administrative and enforcement agency. The Revenue Act of 1971 inaugurated public funding of presidential general elections, with funding of primaries and nominating conventions added by the 1974 FECA Amendments. The latter also imposed certain expenditure limits, struck down by the Supreme Court's landmark Buckley v. Valeo ruling [424 U.S. 1 (1976)] (Cantor ...