Campaign finance refers to all funds raised in order to promote
candidates,
political parties, or policies in
elections,
referendums,
initiatives, party activities, and party organizations. The funds could also detract from the opponents of the above.
Campaign funds is the subject heading under which all books dealing with money in politics are catalogued by the
Library of Congress. Other nations use other terms for the subject and offer a broader perspective. Cross-national comparisons prefer the more comprehensive "
political finance", researchers in continental Europe use "party finance". All of them deal with "the costs of democracy", a term coined by
G. Alexander Heard for his famous analysis of campaign finance in the U.S.