Talk:Corporate donations

Too narrow a definition?
'Corporate donation' surely means no more than 'a gift from a corporation'. It is not confined to politics. Companies also make donations to charities. Also I think some very sweeping statements are being made about whether corporate donations are a threat to democracy. It is still very much open to debate — not a settled issue. Therefore I am challenging the neutrality and scope of the article. ie WP:NPOV --Greenmaven (talk) 09:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, Jack Greenmaven, you are certainly right about the reach of the term. Such donations are not limited to politics. As my contact with the subject has been from political science this did not occur to me. I would appreciate if you could give the article a phrasing that takes care of your more general view. I hope that settles the issue of scope.

As for neutrality it might be a great idea to put your opposing views into an additional paragraph. The point that I was trying to make is not to generalize for all established democracies. However, for four examples I am sure of my facts: 1. In Germany and Canada the volume of corporate political donations has declined dramatically since the 1970s when they used to dominate among the sources of funds for right of center parties; the new dominant source in both countries is public funding. 2. In the U.K. corporate donations to Conservative Central Office have also declined dramatically during the Thatcher years; however, the replacing source of funds has been large donations by rich individuals. 3. In Sweden political parties have decided to outright reject corporate donations since the late 1970s or early 1980s; the replacement has been public money, too. 4. To me, the U.S. due to corporate PACs seems to be the deviating case among established democracies. (The situation in new democracies of Latin America, Africa or Asia is not mentioned in the article. You may want to add some clarification on that situation.) Starting from this evidence I am quite curious to learn more about the points that support your challenge. I am fully aware of the fact that public and media opinion deviate from my view. However, they may still hold a view that was reality in the past. Best, Khnassmacher (talk) 18:51, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your response. I cannot work on this immediately, but I will get back to it soon I hope. Clearly, from your points, Europe is leading the way towards lessening direct corporate influence in politics. Regards --Greenmaven (talk) 22:52, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I have have made a small change along the lines we discussed and taken the POV tag off as a token of good faith. I have left the other tag on to encourage other editors to contribute. Best wishes --Greenmaven (talk) 23:12, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your input! In order to keep up the good faith I have added a few more clarifications, moved the (more general) charitable donations ahead of the (more specific) political ones and identified the limited reach of the literature which was added to my initial contribution. For the time being I will leave it at that and wait for you to come back to the article. Best regards, Khnassmacher (talk) 17:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Your changes are all well made. I found a typo. Have a good New Year! --Greenmaven (talk) 21:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your good wishes, which I happiily return! Best, Khnassmacher (talk) 16:29, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

As there was some change in the article on Australia, I have added that country and Canada (as discussed above) to their proper places in my listing. "Two to four, some open for clarification" is the new balance. Happy New Year! Khnassmacher (talk) 07:17, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Rewrote Political Donations Section
The "Political Donations" section was already flagged for being an "essay". More importantly, it failed to cite sources and contained fundamental errors of fact. For example, political donations by corporations are prohibited in the US in federal and most state elections while, in contrast, they are permitted, tax exempt, and even matched with government funds in countries like Germany.

Since there is such a variety of countries, I have created separate sections for the US and Germany, and people might want to fill in other interesting cases.

The cited research on the effects of campaign contributions is likely to be country specific, so I have listed it under "United States" (where almost all the work has been done).

I have removed the "too few opinions" flag as well, since I believe the article now covers a reasonable set of viewpoints: citations for people warning about corporate donations, for research suggesting it is not a problem, for political donations, and for first amendment issues and relevant cases.

Jcarnelian (talk) 19:24, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

In this part of the article, I found a statement that appears to be outdated: "In the US, corporations are prohibited from making expenditures to influence federal elections."

Is this still accurate, despite the Citizens United v. FEC decision that removed many restrictions on political spending? Jarble (talk) 23:12, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes it is still accurate. Citizens United does not permit corporations to make campaign contributions. Corporate campaign contributions are illegal. --Maddata (talk) 04:31, 20 November 2018 (UTC)