The legal regime of political propaganda in constitutional democracies

Despite the existance of numerous and diverse statutes, principles and other regulations under which rules of political propaganda are set, there is also a conceptual ambiguity in these regulations. Defining and identifying a constitutional democracy poses another problem. First chapter of this thesis faces and tries to solve said problems. Conceptual clarity is established by examination of philosophical, historical and etymological aspects of political propaganda and constitutional democracy. The reach of standpoints other than legal perspective ends with the first part of the thesis. Rest of this study has for objective to establish a comparative framework of legal systems defined and identified in first chapter. First step of this endeavour is to adopt a rights based perspective. In order to do this, European and American jurisdictions of freedom of speech, assembly and association are analysed. Third and final part of the thesis is built upon this base. Most of legal regulations concerning political propaganda bring about substantial modifications of standard regimes of respective rights. These changes are due to certain principles governing on elections and political propaganda. First of these principles is equality and/or equity among candidates. The other principle is integrity of elections. Final part of the thesis is dedicated to exploration of the results that derive from aforementioned principles.