Small Money Donating as Democratic Politics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6323710
AutoresJennifer Rubenstein (0000-0002-9653-2292, autor de correspondencia)
Año2022
Volumen20
Número3
Páginas965-982
Fecha de publicación2022-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPerspectives on Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1537-5927 • E-ISSN: 1541-0986
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s153759272100308x
OpenAlexW4200294457
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas27

Since 2008, the number of people in the United States making small monetary donations to political causes, both within and beyond electoral politics, has skyrocketed. While critics of “big money” in politics laud these donations because they are small, proponents of small-scale democratic political action eye them suspiciously because they are monetary. Neither group interrogates whether the monetariness of these donations might be asourceof their democratic potential. Building on Wendy Brown’s conceptual distinction between monetization and economization, I argue that small-money political donations are potentially democratic not only because they are small, but also because they are monetary. More specifically, the mobility, divisibility, commensurability, and fungibility of money help make small-money political donations potentially democratic, by making them potentially accessible, non-intrusive, and collective. Money is the coin of the economic realm, but it can also be a currency of democratic politics

Campaign finance · Currency · Democracy · Economics · Keynesian economics · Monetary economics · Monetization · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Realm · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory