pp. 561-563
Campaign Finance Complexity: Before Campaigning Retain an Attorney, Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd
In the study of candidate emergence, the cost term in the utility calculus has been of central concern. In this book, Mary Jo McGowan Shepherd makes a valuable contribution to the study of candidate emergence and campaign finance by considering how legal complexity increases the cost term in the emergence calculus. Grounded in complexity theory, she employs complexity measures of entire sections of state campaign finance laws to test whether candidates are deterred from running for office by the costs incurred in learning and complying with campaign finance law.
The empirical sections are divided into two main components: a plain language experiment and quantitative tests of the effects of statute complexity on candidate emergence in state legislative elections. There has been a decades-long discussion of the use of plain language in statutes in effort to make the law more “usable” to everyday citizens. This is of particular interest in the emergence context, since a common goal of reformers is to encourage broader participation. As plain language has been shown to improve comprehension in other legal applications, its use could substantially reduce the costs of learning and complying to campaign finance law and thus stimulate candidate emergence.
In her experiment comparing North Carolina’s statutes on campaign contributions in its
To continue reading, see options above.
Join the Academy of Political Science and automatically receive Political Science Quarterly.
Academy Forum | Human Rights Pragmatism
March 5, 2024
12:30 p.m.–1:30 p.m. ET
WEBINAR
Ukraine, Russia, and the West
Creating a Disaster: NATO's Open Door Policy
Robert J. Art
Engagement, Containment, and the International Politics of Eurasia
DAVID W. RIVERA
Publishing since 1886, PSQ is the most widely read and accessible scholarly journal with distinguished contributors such as: Lisa Anderson, Robert A. Dahl, Samuel P. Huntington, Robert Jervis, Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Theda Skocpol, Woodrow Wilson
view additional issuesArticles | Book reviews
The Academy of Political Science, promotes objective, scholarly analyses of political, social, and economic issues. Through its conferences and publications APS provides analysis and insight into both domestic and foreign policy issues.
With neither an ideological nor a partisan bias, PSQ looks at facts and analyzes data objectively to help readers understand what is really going on in national and world affairs.