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Before the U.S. campaign finance system can be fixed, we first have to understand why it has developed into the system as it exists today. The nature of democracy itself, the American capitalist economic system, the content of the U.S. Constitution and how it is interpreted, the structure of our governmental institutions, the competition for governmental power, and the behavior of campaign finance actors have all played a role in shaping the system.

The Fundamentals of Campaign Finance in the U.S. takes care to situate the campaign finance system in the context of the broader U.S. political and economic system. Dwyre and Kolodny offer readers a brief tour through the development of the campaign finance regulatory structure, highlighting the Supreme Court's commitment to free speech over political equality from Buckley v. Valeo (1976) through the passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA, 2002). They also examine the driving force behind campaign finance reform—corruption—through historical, transactional, and institutional perspectives. While diving into the insufficiency of the disclosure and enforcement of campaign finance laws and calling attention to multiple federal agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, the Internal Revenue Service, and (principally) the Federal Election Commission, the authors show how a narrow view on campaign finance makes change difficult and why reforms often have limited success. By examining the fundamentals, Dwyre and Kolodny show the difficulties of changing a political system whose candidates have always relied on private funding of campaigns to one that guarantees free speech rights while minimizing concerns of corruption.

Since 2010's Citizen's United Supreme Court decision, there has been increasing concern over the role of spending on elections from groups outside of the Republican and Democratic parties. There has been particular focus on outside spending on more extreme candidates, which could help to increase political polarization. In new research, Robin Kolodny and Diana Dwyre map the organizations which make up parties' extended networks and those which are outside of them. They find that most non-party groups are inside parties' extended networks, and tend to work towards their goals, rather than towards unseating establishment candidates.

There is a good deal of discussion currently among political scientists about the nature of political parties and the impacts of changing party–group relations. Are so-called outside groups promoting extreme candidates and, thus, contributing to polarization? Or perhaps, party-allied groups follow the party's lead and support the same candidates the party supports. We view parties as extended party networks (EPNs) and examine the campaign spending practices of formal party organizations (the House congressional campaign committees) and some of the groups that are seen as allied with each party and some we expect to be outside each party's network. We analyze the levels of congruence and divergence in party and group spending in the 2014 House elections. We find that most nonparty groups support the same candidates favored by the party with which they most identify, and very few are outside each party's EPN-supporting candidates who are challenging the party's picks.

The debate over the political power of business has witnessed a revival after the global financial crisis of 2007—2009. We begin by arguing that business political fragmentation or unity has important consequences for policy outcomes. The structure of the U.S. government is conducive to incremental policy changes, often in response to business pressures. In turn, these changes shape the political interests and alliances of business. We illustrate this dynamic through an analysis of the political processes leading to the enactment of the Financial Modernization Act (FMA) of 1999, which repealed Depression-era regulations and allowed commercial banks to enter the securities and insurance business and vice versa. The FMA condoned the emergence of largely unregulated diversified financial institutions, which proved "too big to fail" during the crisis. Several factors contributed to the FMA: political institutions, international competition, the ideological convergence of the Republican and Democratic parties, and the political interests of financial industry actors.

The debate over the political power of business has witnessed a revival after the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. We begin by arguing that business political fragmentation or unity has important consequences for policy outcomes. The structure of the U.S. government is conducive to incremental policy changes, often in response to business pressures. In turn, these changes shape the political interests and alliances of business. We illustrate this dynamic through an analysis of the political processes leading to the enactment of the Financial Modernization Act (FMA) of 1999, which repealed Depression-era regulations and allowed commercial banks to enter the securities and insurance business and vice versa. The FMA condoned the emergence of largely unregulated diversified financial institutions, which proved "too big to fail" during the crisis. Several factors contributed to the FMA: political institutions, international competition, the ideological convergence of the Republican and Democratic parties, and the political interests of financial industry actors. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]

Theories of low‐information rationality claim that uninformed voters can compensate for their lack of political knowledge by employing heuristics, such as interest group endorsements, to make voting decisions as if they were fully informed. Critics of low‐information rationality contend that politically unaware voters are unlikely to use group endorsements effectively as a heuristic since they are unlikely to know the political relevance of interest groups. We address this debate by entertaining the possibility that contextual information coupled with a source cue may enhance the effectiveness of group endorsements as a heuristic. We test competing expectations with a field experiment conducted during the 2006 election in two highly competitive Pennsylvania statehouse races where a well‐known liberal interest group endorsed Democratic candidates and canvassed both core supporters and Republicans believed to be likeminded. Our results reveal that Republicans used the endorsement as a negative voting cue and that the group's endorsement helped some Republicans compensate for their lack of awareness about politics.