'If you're concerned about the health of British democracy, read this book – it is thorough, gripping and vitally important' Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland. Democracy is in crisis, and unaccountable and untraceable flows of money are helping to destroy it. Politicians lie gleefully, making wild claims that can be shared instantly with millions of people on social media. Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro and populists in many other countries are the beneficiaries. Peter Geoghegan is a diligent, brilliant guide through a shadowy world of dark money and digital disinformation stretching from Westminster to Washington, and far beyond. He shows how antiquated electoral laws are broken with impunity, how secretive lobbying bends our politics out of shape, and how Silicon Valley tech giants have colluded in selling out democracy. Geoghegan investigates politicians, fabulously well-funded partisan think tanks, propagandists who know how to game a rigged system, and the campaigners and regulators valiantly trying to stop them. Democracy for Sale is the story of how money, vested interests and digital skulduggery are eroding trust in democracy – and a powerful account of what must be done about it.

Democracy for Sale is an on-the-ground account of Indonesian democracy, analyzing its election campaigns and behind-the-scenes machinations. Edward Aspinall and Ward Berenschot assess the informal networks and political strategies that shape access to power and privilege in the messy political environment of contemporary Indonesia. In post-Suharto Indonesian politics the exchange of patronage for political support is commonplace. Clientelism, argue the authors, saturates the political system, and in Democracy for Sale they reveal the everyday practices of vote buying, influence peddling, manipulating government programs, and skimming money from government projects. In doing so, Aspinall and Berenschot advance three major arguments. The first argument points toward the role of religion, kinship, and other identities in Indonesian clientelism. The second explains how and why Indonesia's distinctive system of free-wheeling clientelism came into being. And the third argument addresses variation in the patterns and intensity of clientelism. Through these arguments and with comparative leverage from political practices in India and Argentina, Democracy for Sale provides compelling evidence of the importance of informal networks and relationships rather than formal parties and institutions in contemporary Indonesia.

North Carolina -- perhaps more than any other state in the Union -- has been transformed by the new and growing tidal wave of political spending. Zach Galifianakis, the comic star of “The Hangover” movies, travels back to his home state to investigate how North Carolina has become a bellwether for how the money of a few has come to dominate our democracy. Galifianakis investigates allegations that the current state government was put in power by moneyed interests and has thus carried out a program that only benefits its backers: cuts to education, healthcare spending and environmental protection; lowering of taxes for the wealthy and corporations; and the passage of laws designed to roll back access to the ballot.

This dissertation is a critical examination of the political-media complex (PMC) in the United States, as observed along three currents: philosophical, historical, and political. The development of this symbiotic ecosystem is charted longitudinally, with an emphasis on the forty years of reform, regulation, and deregulation of campaign finance and political broadcasting that followed the Watergate scandal. Attention is focused on this network of media and political actors, and their synergistic architecture of power, as observed through the eleven presidential elections that followed the post-Watergate reform movement, from 1976 to 2016. Situating this problem as a crisis of political communication rather than political science, the conventional voter-centric "rational choice" model is rejected; instead, and the perspectives found in critical media studies, political economy of media, and science and technology studies are employed for a more holistic view of the landscape and outlook of this industrial knowledge-power structure. This work culminates with a multifaceted mandate for actionable intervention, and normative recommendations for reform at the regulatory level are put forth. The contemporary debate about the issue of "money in politics" writ large hinges on whether or not money -- specifically, the spending of it for purposes of political persuasion -- should be considered speech, and therefore left largely unregulated lest it impinge on First Amendment rights. This debate strikes at the core of a dialectical tension within our democracy: liberty versus equality. Throughout this work, the empirical reality is held in contrast to normative democratic theory. The ever-increasing costs of federal political campaigns in the U.S. have created a troubling culture of "permanent campaigning" and tipped the balance of power in the White House and in Congress away from elected leaders, and their constituents, toward the wealthy donors -- individual, corporations, and special interest groups -- who fund their electoral victories. How do we fix this inappropriate and destructive power dynamic? If we take a step back to investigate why the cost of political campaigning has skyrocketed over the past forty years, we land at the doorstep of a clear culprit: the astronomical cost of political advertising on broadcast television. This dissertation seeks to examine how and why the broadcast networks have been allowed to subvert their public interest obligation and profit off of American elections, and what legislative and advocacy attempts have been made to rein in their influence. For this investigation, archival data, secondary sources, running records and recollections are all employed to present as accurate a portrayal as possible of the political-media complex at work in each of the eleven presidential elections since 1976. Particular attention is given to the myriad policy interventions -- regulatory, legislative, and judicial -- and their often unexpected outcomes. In conclusion, this study explores the need for a new theoretical paradigm by which to understand the role of broadcast media as a powerful political entity in its own right, and its dominant, nonpareil role in American politics. Finally, normative recommendations will be put forth on what can be done to mitigate the powerful gatekeeping role of the broadcast media within our political system, thereby dramatically reducing the amount of money needed to campaign. By chipping away at the exorbitant cost of campaigning for the presidency and advocating multiple new channels for transparency, hopefully the power, influence, and leverage of campaign funders can be diminished, returning political power to elected officials and, ultimately restoring the political voice of the American voter. Acknowledging that money will never be completely eradicated from the political process, these recommendations are offered in the spirit of restoring a sense of equilibrium currently lacking in U.S. politics. The ever-increasing costs of federal political campaigns in the U.S. have created a troubling culture of "permanent campaigning" and tipped the balance of power in the White House and in Congress away from elected leaders, and their constituents, toward the wealthy donors -- individual, corporations, and special interest groups -- who fund their electoral victories. How do we fix this inappropriate and destructive power dynamic? If we take a step back to investigate why the cost of political campaigning has skyrocketed over the past forty years, we land at the doorstep of a clear culprit: the astronomical cost of political advertising on broadcast television.