Besides political parties and candidates, there are other stakeholders who regularly – and increasingly – become involved in election campaigning. These are lobby or interest groups known as third parties, and they are important and legitimate elements of the democratic process, as they represent values or concerns held by segments of the public.
Many democracies have found it difficult to create enforceable rules around third party campaigning however. This is especially the case where lobby and interest groups straddle the line between party support and non-partisan lobbying. For example, a survey conducted by the Centre for Law and Democracy found that:
[In America], advertising by third parties…is almost entirely unregulated. The result of this approach in the United States has been a political atmosphere that is significantly influenced by money and where third party organisations – immune not only from spending limits but also, due to their arm’s‐ length relationship with candidates, from the basic tenets of democratic civility – play an increasingly prominent and ugly role in the discourse.
The depths to which these third party organisations can stoop was vividly illustrated by the attacks on 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry by “Swift Boat Vets for Truth”, a political action group. The group subjected Kerry, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, to a bevy of groundless allegations including having lied about his military service and about the engagements for which he was awarded medals. Kerry’s war record had been seen as one of his political strengths, which was problematic for his opponent, President George W. Bush, who had himself avoided military service. Had Bush attempted to attack Kerry’s service directly, he would have been criticised for practising dirty politics and for hypocrisy, given his own history. But since the attacks came from an arm’s length third party, the Bush campaign was able to deny responsibility, and to condemn the attack ads as “deplorable” even while they continued to air. Thus, third party advertising allows for a dirtier brand of politics, enabling candidates to wash their hands of particularly ugly attacks by claiming that they are the work of outside operatives over whom the candidates have no direct control.
Although the United States is the most prominent example of a country with a loose regulatory regime, especially as applied to third party advertising, there are other nations that take a similar approach, including Venezuela, where paid advertising has had a similarly problematic effect. In Latvia, where election advertising laws also do not apply to third parties, there was criticism of the role that third party advertisers played in the 2006 election campaign.[i]
Countries with tighter regulatory regimes for campaign spending also tend to extend campaign rules to third party messages “with a partisan political character,” to prevent domination of media outlets by these partisan organisations. Countries including the United Kingdom and Canada apply such rules. Meanwhile, countries such as France, Ireland and Belgian which ban paid political advertising on radio and television, but provide free direct access to political parties and candidates, thereby bar partisan third parties altogether from buying broadcast time.[ii]
[i] Michael Karanicolas, Regulation of paid advertising: A survey, (Centre for Law and Democracy March 2012), http://www.law-democracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Elections-and-Broadcasting-Final.pdf
