This is one of the first book-length examinations of the ways in which (partial or full) public funding of state-level campaigns have altered the “strategies, behavior, and emotions of candidates and voters alike” (p. 8). Subsidizing Democracy, is not solely a historical analysis, however, for it serves to assess whether public funding could present an alternative to the political finance regime established by the Supreme Court in Citizens’ United (2010) and attendant verdicts. The underlying premise is that reforms are required “to restore fairness, opportunity, and integrity to American elections” (p. 12). This tacitly assumes a concept of “fairness” different from the “market approach” adopted by the Citizens’ United ruling.

In the words of Justice Anthony Kennedy, all who participate in the public exchange of ideas use money to fund speech. Such speech is motivated by the hope “that the candidate will respond by producing those political outcomes [that] the supporter favors.” Large-scale donors “may have influence over or access to elected officials,” but the ability of money to purchase “ingratiation and access” is a beneficial proof that “democracy is premised on responsiveness.” The outcome, according to Michael Miller, exacerbated and gave ideological cover to problems that Clean Elections reforms sought to overcome: a) the flow of large, unregulated contributions that became “a necessary tool in the new campaign finance landscape” (p. 2); b) the resulting benefit to incumbents that helped produce the situation where “the majority of legislators at both the state and federal level can bank on keeping their jobs for as long as they want” (p. 3); c) the uncompetitive environment and growing voter apathy that result once strong potential challengers stay away, while weaker ones must expend “considerable time and effort on fundraising that more often than not fails to place them on par with incumbents” (p. 3); and d) the possibility that incumbents will act to satisfy the goals of their financial supporters rather than the interests of their constituents (p. 4).

The general question that directs Miller’s analysis—“Does [state-level public campaign funding] work?”—should, therefore, be understood both backwards and forwards in time. The introduction and first chapter set the question in its past and future contexts, and explain the main goals behind public campaign funding. Chapter 2 moves the analysis to the impact on the costs of campaigns as seen through the eyes of the rivals, and the strategic decisions that these make as adjustments (beginning with the choice of whether or not to accept Clean Election subsidies).

A series of chapters follow the effects of such decisions on the campaign itself. Chapter 3 takes up the question of time. Public funding reduces the need to devote time for fund-raising and thereby facilitates enhanced interaction between candidates and constituents. The effect on voting behavior is analyzed in Chapter 4. Essentially, it enables the casting of “more informed preferences, raising the probability of election results that reflects the true will of the district” (p. 79). The impact on candidate quality is examined next. Subsidies allow challengers to wage well-run campaigns regardless of their fund-raising prowess. This “may not attract high-quality candidates, [but] appears to manufacture them “ (p. 106). Taken together, these results lead to more competitive contests. This, however, is not to say that the benefits are equally shared. The ideological cost, discussed in Chapter 6, is incurred mainly by fiscally conservative candidates who must confront the incongruence between public subsidies and their own ideological views. The possible unintended consequence is therefore a competitive advantage to Democratic challengers. While survey data do not support the notion of systemic Republican disadvantage, the uneven cost may bear on candidates’ participation in the program and their subsequent campaign strategies.

The final two chapters return to the present and the future. In 2011, the Supreme Court struck down the matching-funds provision of the Arizona Election Act as unconstitutional, raising the question of whether programs based on public subsidies could serve as viable future reforms. The conclusion is that once the ability to wage a reasonable campaign is assured, the amount of money per se does not determine the results. Clean Elections could therefor still serve, but will need to change in a manner that would take the Supreme Court’s verdict into account. The concluding chapter offers two illustrations of such shifts through the analysis of New York's System of Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) and the Fair Elections Now Act introduced by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) and cosponsored significantly by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

The book flows well, and the argument is soundly constructed. Nevertheless, the opening statement in the first chapter raises concern: “In American politics, money matters.” In my opinion, this is a cliché that seems to establish a difference that does not exist between the United States and most other democracies. The provision of public subsidies to support electoral campaigns has been widely adopted since the mid-twentieth century. As in the United States, the common rationalization was the need to address the budgetary problems that resulted from the growth of modern communication techniques, the need to reach wide publics, and the inability to raise commensurate funds from ordinary party members and supporters. Public funding was the alternative to outright corruption, or the type of plutocracy that was defined by the U.S. Supreme Court as “responsive government.” All systems differ, yet all share basic similarities, and the examination by a vast literature of the question “Did such reforms work?” may well serve to raise hypotheses to be studied in the U.S. context.

An illustration is the possibility of another unintended consequence. Rather than enhancing meaningful electoral communication, the ability to detach themselves from specific electorates may lead candidates to appeal to all and sundry on the bases of broad unelaborated generalizations. A similar concern appears in the specific literature on public campaign funding in the United States itself. An illustration is the finding that public campaign funding has “an MSG effect” of enhancing marketing tendencies and undifferentiated appeals where they already exist, but discouraging them where they do not. Another example is studies that point to the possibility that the effects of Clean Elections are likely to be eroded in time by candidates’ strategic adjustments, coupled with the continued pivotal role of traditional factors.

Despite these shortcomings, I encourage scholars of political finance to pay attention to Subsidizing Democracy. Not only does it address questions that were insufficiently examined (e.g., the comparison between the results of partially funded and fully funded campaigns, or the problem of ideological price), or simply taken for granted (e.g., what candidates do precisely when relieved of much of the burden of fundraising), but it also employs a mixture of methodologies and data to examine them. Especially interesting is the view of public campaign funding through the eyes of candidates as drawn from survey data and interview testimonies. These supplement and give flavor to the system-level data on which most studies are based. The final chapters are of special interest. Reform schemes, such as the voucher program practiced in Seattle (on the ballot in 2016 in Washington State and South Dakota), are too new to be studied here, but current dissatisfaction with the arrangements of plutocratic funding in both the Democratic (see Sanders) and Republican (see Donald Trump) parties ensures that the principles of public funding and the assessment of their results will stay with us for the foreseeable future.