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There is a perception in the United States that campaign contributions equate with vote buying. Outright vote buying is illegal, but many citizens believe that loopholes in campaign contribution laws allow some to buy votes while perpetuating a façade of legitimacy. Both federal and state laws attempt to regulate campaign contributions, but many of those have been limited by the Supreme Court’s ruling that campaign spending is considered free speech (Buckley vs. Valeo, 1976). Without the ability to limit campaign spending, the amount of money it takes to run a campaign, particularly a presidential campaign, has increased substantially. This had led to an increase in the use of bundling by presidential campaigns, with the winners often rewarding their bundlers. It has also led to an increase in outside independent organizations, known as Super PACs, with an unlimited ability to raise and spend money. This creates an additional problem as a small percentage of wealthy individuals constitute the vast majority of campaign contributors, leading to the perception that politicians cater to the elite. Whether a politician is affected by these factors or not is hard to prove, but it still leaves a perception by voters that their votes are less influential than large campaign contributors and there is always a risk that a vote has been bought.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the interaction between the economic and political imperatives of new monetarism. The breakdown of the global derivatives markets, which came into the spotlight during the 2008/2009 global debt crisis, brought up the issue of trust. The matter at hand is the loss of trust in investors' ability to make informed decisions, but trust in the self‐regulating capacity of open markets has also been seriously shaken.

Relying on Roche and McKee's analysis of the global financial crisis, the author emphasizes that new monetarism is not a new paradigm, but rather a result of economic circumstances. Although the growth of financial asset prices was indeed partly a result of the liberalization of financial markets, the decisive factor is to be found in the creation of new financial instruments. On the one hand, derivatives have drastically increased the “investment power” or “purchasing power” of money. However, on the other hand, derivatives are a form of under‐appreciated liquidity that creates bubble assets.

Over the last two decades, the value of global financial assets has grown much faster than the real economy in its background, which means that in the era of new monetarism, financial markets set the tone of the real economy. Consequently, in the eyes of investors, the crucial term becomes “liquidity”, rather than “real economy”. As disinflation multiplied the value of financial assets, central banks progressively lost control of money. Players in financial markets that had increasing trust in cheap money started to introduce new forms of money, which allowed them to create liquidity, independently of the central bank. It has been shown that the quantity and cost of money available for investment can be frozen up to a point where it threatens the global financial system.

Networks for promoting social responsibility of the corporate sector, which more and more tightly cover our small planet, wish to make transparent the connections between corporate leaders, politicians and organizations to which they are connected. Their members conduct research with the aim of making the invisible power of money visible.

New financial democracy in the post‐modern era presupposes financially literate citizens, which without a doubt presents a challenge for education systems, which will evidently have to incorporate a new, crucial form of literacy, in addition to linguistic, mathematical and computer literacy – financial literacy.

It should come as no surprise that Americans believe corruption dominates the US political system and, in particular, that members of Congress are in the pockets of wealthy special interests and do not represent the people's views. Among other things, this has led to a gradual decrease in public confidence in government, trust in political institutions, and demands for anti-corruption reforms. Yet, calls for congressional reform are not new. What is unusual is the degree to which the political institutions, particularly Congress, have become unpopular; the extent American's believe the system is out of balance; and the people's distaste for democracy. As public perceptions of political corruption deepen, how is Congress responding to these concerns? Recent events indicate genuine attempts to solve, or at least reduce, the appearance of government corruption. For example, in the 2018 midterm elections, many political candidates signaled a willingness to address the public's grievances. In fact, the newly elected House of Representatives created and introduced legislation that addressed sweeping congressional corruption. This chapter aims to identify and trace congressional reform attempts such as banning lobbyists from fundraising, restrictions on the revolving door for politicians and job hunting disclosures, and other structural solutions considered important to prevent corruption. In particular, the author uses a historical lens to uncover and assess past and current attempts to fix congressional corruption.

The purpose of this paper is to illuminate the hidden process of collusion among power holders in state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in an emerging economy, which endures despite comprehensive reforms towards democracy and good governance. Why are mechanisms of checks and balances not functioning in the way they should?

The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with board members, executives, politicians, bureaucrats and representatives from auditing boards involved in the management of SOEs in Indonesia.

The findings reveal practices of collective conservatism, reciprocal opportunism and normalisation of corruption. The costs of getting into powerful positions are so high that conglomerate business owners gain control over the management of SOEs. The authors use the terms “wall-building and gatekeeping” to explain such cases.

There is a continuous process of wall building and gatekeeping occurring among business oligarchs, bureaucrats and elected politicians in Indonesia. New entrants into the system are co-opted by the established elite.

This study shows collusion, rent-seeking and corruption among political and business elites as well as top officials in the government hinder good governance reforms in state-owned Indonesian enterprises.

Collusion and illicit business practices in SOEs are clearly grounded on wall building and gatekeeping. Tackling this problem is a precondition for good governance and an improved legal and regulatory business environment in Indonesia. The ideal separation of powers and the checks and balances for good governance apparently need more than a democracy to break through. A further strengthening of the free press and critical academics will be one crucial contribution.

There is generally a lack of understanding of the context of corruption, such as the influence of institutional and organisational structures. The topic of corruption is also under-researched due to the difficulty of finding empire evidence. This paper contributes to explaining why new political and organisational structures, such as a democratically elected parliament and a particularly designed corruption eradication commission, are not able to hinder rent-seeking practices and illicit political business in state agencies.

We show that, in the US telecommunications industry, market participants have a sophisticated understanding of the political process, and behave strategically in their allocation of contributions to state legislators as if seeking to purchase influence over regulatory policy. We find that interests respond defensively to contributions from rivals, take into account the configuration of support available to them in both the legislature and the regulatory commission, and vary their contributions according to variations in relative costs for influence by different legislatures. This strategic behavior supports a theory that commercially motivated interests contribute campaign resources in order to mobilize legislators to influence the decisions of regulatory agencies. We also report evidence that restrictions on campaign finance do not affect all interests equally. The paper therefore provides positive evidence on the nature and effects of campaign contributions in regulated industries where interest group competition may be sharp.

This paper seeks to focus on the challenge posed by financial globalization before the traditional Westphalian model of monetary sovereignty, claiming that financial globalization of the world's markets leads to new forms of geopolitical rivalry among contemporary governments.

The paper sets the analytical framework for the study of a tripartite foundation of monetary sovereignty in money manager capitalism, consisting of currency associated with the instruments of its manipulation, which are the two largest independent macroeconomic players: the central bank and the state. This raises the issues of dual sovereignty in economy and the ways in which these entities use their sovereign powers on local and global levels.

Current growing interdependence of financial networks increases the number of choices in monetary issues and forces governments to make ever faster adjustments to the machinery of complex monetary instruments which not only facilitate transactions among very different and distant economies, but also obscure the transparency of decision making. The need to ensure, through the central bank's legislation, an independent status of central bankers with respect to politicians, implies that their work be effectively monitored by the public and the respective parliament.

The independence of central banks, which comprises goal independence, instrument independence and personal independence of the decision‐making body of a central bank, increases the accountability of central bankers and raises the issue of sanctions for their misbehavior.

Financial globalization has definitely raised the issue of redistribution of the authority of governments and non‐state agents. A clear hierarchy between currencies at the global level has dual consequences: first, it amplifies the unequal relationship between the leaders and the followers in global monetary circulation; second, global market forces ignore political borders and present a serious challenge for the monetary sovereignty of contemporary governments. Equally, the question of re‐formulation of the concept of a sovereign state is raised.

This paper aims to explain the modern unintended human-personal self-destruction and the importance of diverse society-specific holistic cultures (“native cultures”) and social value systems as the remedy.

This paper is a viewpoint, as both the explanation and the proposed remedy are based on the present author’s historical, theoretical and normative considerations.

First, the author’s interpretation of pre-modern to modern Western societies reveals that some important pre-modern Western values are given to the modern era as part of the market value system. Second, some Mercantilist ideas have strong influences on Classical economic theory and methodology. Third, the modern Western value system – the market value system – corresponds to the Core Synergism of Modern Civilization or the complex driving force of Modern Civilization.

This paper is designed to facilitate reflection on the excessive emphasis on economic/market values.

The present author’s normative framework for social value system (“integral harmony”) is used for explaining a likely remedy of the unintended human-personal self-destruction. Also, for solving the human-personal predicament, this article integrates native culture, balance and harmony into economic thinking to promote sustainable development for a viable human future. Concluding remarks provide a summary for clarification of the remedy.

Currently, mobile payments have become pervasive in electronic commerce and are steadily increasing in many regions worldwide. In the literature, however, its continued usage among consumers is deemed equivocal, particularly among small businesses. This study uses the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) to examine mobile money continuance intention among micro enterprises in an emerging/less-developed economy. This study aims to explore the mediating role of agent credibility on this relationship, given that these agents are contingent actors between service providers and mobile money users.

After a preliminary qualitative enquiry, quantitative data collected from 584 micro enterprises were tested from the UTAUT perspective, using structural equation modelling.

Findings from the study establish the applicability of the UTAUT in explaining the antecedents, motivations and continuance intention of mobile money usage among micro enterprises. Further, beyond their direct effects, the UTAUT conditions have indirect effects on the continuance intention through their effect on perceived agent credibility.

The findings provide evidence to issues of research and managerial interest, offering insightful implications to the academic and practitioner communities, respectively.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the various characteristics of mobile money transactions and the threats they present to anti-money laundering (AML) and counter terrorist financing regimes.

A thorough literature review was conducted on mobile money transactions and the associated money-laundering and terrorist financing threats. Four key themes were identified in relations to the three stages of money laundering and effective law enforcement.

The findings indicate that as money laundering and terrorist financing transactions continue to gravitate towards the weaknesses in the financial system, mobile money provides yet another avenue for criminals to exploit. Risk factors associated with anonymity, elusiveness, rapidity and lack of oversights were all integral considerations in building an effective AML regime. The use of cash is considered a higher threat than mobile money prior to implementation of systems and controls.

This rapidly changing environment of how individuals manage their money during transactions is set to further explode globally, which poses new problems for regulators and governments alike. Unless there is a unified concentration to heighten global awareness, the imposing threat of mobile money is set to increase at a rapid rate if appropriate actions are not taken.

The findings from this study can be used to gain greater insights on mobile money transactions and raise further awareness of the ever-increasing threat to global financial integrity.