Campaign Finance Regulation Research Articles

This Study Examines the Impact of Campaign Finance Restrictions on Electoral Transparency and Integrity in ASEAN Countries

The transparency and integrity of electoral processes are of paramount importance for the health of a democracy. They prevent corruption and ensure fairness. Many ASEAN countries have implemented strict campaign finance regulations with the aim of enhancing transparency and reducing financial influence in politics. However, the effectiveness of these policies depends on the existence of appropriate oversight mechanisms and the specific characteristics of the local political context. This research examines the impact of campaign finance restrictions on electoral transparency in ASEAN, identifies challenges, and highlights effective practices. It also offers recommendations for policy improvements. This research employs a comparative methodology and thematic analysis to examine the similarities and differences in campaign finance restrictions across the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It utilises data from documents to identify policy patterns and impacts. This research examines the impact of campaign finance restrictions in ASEAN, offering new insights and data on the influence of such regulations on electoral outcomes. It also provides recommendations for enhancing transparency and integrity in elections. This article examines the efficacy of campaign finance restrictions in enhancing electoral transparency and integrity in Indonesia. The findings indicate that, despite the restrictions' objective of curbing undue influence in the electoral process, their implementation continues to encounter substantial obstacles, including inadequate oversight and a dearth of information disclosure. The research underscores the necessity for regulatory reform and the fortification of oversight mechanisms as pivotal strategies to attain elections that are more equitable and transparent.

It Takes a Movement: Lawyers, Litigation, and Legal Theory in the Attack on Campaign Finance Reform

Abstract Recent Supreme Court decisions have hobbled campaign finance regulation and placed significant constitutional constraints on possible future reforms. But the Supreme Court has not acted alone. Major constitutional changes often require a substantial legal and political infrastructure, an ecosystem of actors, ideas, strategies, and tactics to instantiate new constitutional doctrine into law. In Big Money Unleashed, Ann Southworth examines the composition, development, organization, and intellectual underpinning of the legal movement that has worked to cripple campaign finance regulation. She chronicles the raising and testing of the key legal theories; the sources of political and financial backing for the movement; the combination of disparate groups into an antireform coalition; and the organization of what has proven to be a very effective litigation strategy. The result, she explains, has been the ascendancy of a powerful constitutional discourse that treats money as speech, campaign spending as freedom, and government regulation as censorship. The antireform litigation campaign on its own would not have been enough to transform the law; key appointments to the Supreme Court were essential. But the movement provided the Court with the cases, the arguments, and broader political support that are part of constitutional change.

Examining public perceptions of US campaign finance over time through survey experiments

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the US Supreme Court ruled that campaign finance regulations “are appropriate legislative weapons against the reality or appearance of improper influence.” Using data from multiple survey experiments repeated across six CCES surveys from 2012 to 2020, we test whether varied information regarding US campaign finance institutions and laws alter public perceptions of the campaign finance system and campaign finance reform across time, including the perception of improper influence. Respondents had more negative attitudes toward candidates who received support from Super PACs. However, respondents were not moved by primed differences in expenditure limits, coordination, or donation disclosure. Ultimately, we find that the majority of Americans dislike and distrust the campaign finance system and generally remain unmoved by any experimentally-primed differences. These experimental findings remain consistent across time, indicating that attitudes toward the US campaign finance system are stable and resistant to change.

Political inequality: reasons for optimism?

Abstract I comment on the article in this collection by Ansell and Gingrich, who highlight the concept of political inequality. Then they investigate empirically whether political inequality has risen in line with economic inequality over the past few decades in the UK. This is an important question, as political inequality can easily generate an inequality trap. I focus on the last dimension of political inequality that Ansell and Gingrich consider—who politicians are—and highlight that it is strongly linked to the first two: who votes and who they vote for. I first argue that the lack of political representativeness may at least partly explain the rise in abstention. I then highlight the role played by campaign finance regulations in explaining the relationship between political and economic inequalities. Finally, using the example of gender underrepresentation, I argue that shifting descriptive representation may have concrete policy consequences.

Politics of Godfatherism and Democratic Governance in Nigeria: The Rivers State Case

The study examined the politics of godfatherism and democratic governance in Nigeria with preference to Rivers State political crisis. The objectives of the study were to identify the environmental factors infuencing the politics of godfatherism in Rivers State; to examine the impact the politics of godfatherism has on democratic governance in Rivers State; and to find out strategies to abate politics of godfatherism in Rivers State. The study adopted the elite theory, applied a descriptive survey research design, used both primary and secondary sources of data and a structured questionnaire as the instrument for data collection was employed. The population of the study is 5,198,716 residents in Rivers State (National Population Commission of Nigeria, 2006). The sample population is 400 (derived via the application of Taro Yamani sample size determination formula). The data collected via questionnaire were analyzed using table and percentages, while the hypotheses were tested using the chi-square. The findings of the study revealed that there are environmental factors inciting politics of godfatherism in Rivers State; that politics of godfatherism has adversely impacted on democratic governance in Rivers State; and that there are strategic measures to abate politics of godfatherism in Rivers State. Based on the findings, the study recommended the prevention of undue influence from political godfathers, enforcement of campaign finance regulations, promotion of a level playing field for all candidates before and during elections in Nigeria among others.

Analysis of the Historical Development and Critical Importance of US Election Campaign Finance Regulation

Election, one of the fundamental representations of democracy is changing due to the flood of money running into campaign finance; this essay trying to identify the historical development and impact of US campaign regulation on the virtues of democracy. The general trends across academia spilted between liberitarian and egalitarian perspectives in debating the fundamental tradeoff between freedom and equality by looking at the logic behind the changing regulation. This essay takes an inclusive approach reviewing the various fields that conduct campaign finance research while providing a historical overview of the US election campaign regulations and their critical impact on American political society.

The Rich Have a Slight Edge: Evidence from Comparative Data on Income-Based Inequality in Policy Congruence

AbstractSeveral recent studies have found unequal policy responsiveness, meaning that the policy preferences of high-income citizens are better reflected in implemented policies than the policy preferences of low-income citizens. This has been found mainly in a few studies from the US and a small number of single-country studies from Western Europe. However, there is a lack of comparative studies that stake out the terrain across a broader group of countries. We analyze survey data on the policy preferences of about 3,000 policy proposals from thirty European countries over nearly forty years, combined with information on whether each policy proposal was implemented or not. The results from the cross-country data confirm the general pattern from previous studies that policies supported by the rich are more likely to be implemented than those supported by the poor. We also test four explanations commonly found in the literature: whether unequal responsiveness is exacerbated by (a) high economic inequality, (b) the absence of campaign finance regulations, (c) low union density, and (d) low voter turnout.

Dysfunctional design of campaign finance regulatory and post-election corruption

This study begins with the condition that almost every election held in Indonesia lacks accountability and transparency in campaign finance report cases. Matched to Mietzner’s (2015) and Briffault’s (2010) reports, there are always problems with the non-functioning of campaign finance arrangements in upholding the principles of transparency and accountability. As a result, the lack of accountability and transparency in implementing campaign finance arrangements often results in conflicts of interest that lead to post-election corruption. This article aims to discover the factors that hinder the functioning of campaign finance regulations that can encourage enforcement transparency and accountability. This research uses normative juridical methods with a comparative law approach. The object of this research is the election campaign funding regulation, especially local elections in Indonesia and focuses on the dysfunctional design of campaign finance regulations on local head elections. We found that the candidates often violate existing campaign finance regulations, with election administrators, law enforcement and the public openly tolerating such violations. Campaign finance regulations continue to develop, but they only prioritize administrative aspects in their implementation. In conclusion, changes needed to optimize fund management are funds obtained from campaigns owned by individuals and then have a reasonable candidate wealth ratio.

Kin in the Game: How Family Ties Help Firms Overcome Campaign Finance Regulation

Kin in the Game: How Family Ties Help Firms Overcome Campaign Finance Regulation

Does Money Matter for Electability? Lesson Learned From the 2014 Legislative Election in Indonesia

Reform toward open-list elections in Indonesia has transformed the nature of campaigning to become more personalized. This has raised questions regarding the role of money in elections and calls for stricter campaign finance regulation. However, the merits of limits on campaign finance depend on whether and how campaign finance affects incumbents and challengers differently. Literature on this issue has produced ambiguous results, with only few studies conducted in a developing country democracy. This study estimates the effect of campaign money, along with other factors including list position and incumbency status, on the probability of a candidate being elected in the 2014 legislative election in Indonesia. Our econometric estimations confirm that campaign money effectively raises the probability of candidates being elected. The probability of getting elected will increase up to approximately 5 percentage points for each additional IDR 100 million of campaign money. Campaign money is positive and significant for both incumbents and challengers, with the magnitude being bigger for incumbents. However, the effect of diminishing returns of campaign money is slightly stronger for incumbents. Since raising additional campaign funding benefits incumbents more than it does for challengers, this study suggests the enforcement of campaign spending limits to create a more level playing field in Indonesia’s legislative elections.

Campaign Contributions, Independent Expenditures, and the Appearance of Corruption: Public Opinion vs. the Supreme Court's Assumptions

We use survey experiments to test the validity of judicial assumptions underlying campaign finance regulation. Our evidence supports the key assumption that “appearance of corruption” is directly r...

Campaign Finance Regulations and Public Policy

AbstractDespite a century of efforts to constrain money in American elections, there is little consensus on whether campaign finance regulations make any appreciable difference. Here we take advantage of a change in the campaign finance regulations of half of the U.S. states mandated by the Supreme Court’sCitizens Uniteddecision. This exogenously imposed change in the regulation of independent expenditures provides an advance over the identification strategies used in most previous studies. Using a generalized synthetic control method, we find that afterCitizens United, states that had previously banned independent corporate expenditures (and thus were “treated” by the decision) adopted more “corporate-friendly” policies on issues with broad effects on corporations’ welfare; we find no evidence of shifts on policies with little or no effect on corporate welfare. We conclude that even relatively narrow changes in campaign finance regulations can have a substantively meaningful influence on government policy making.

Do campaign contributions buy favorable policies? Evidence from the insurance industry

AbstractTo learn about the effects of corporate campaign contributions, we study the potential influence of the insurance industry in US state politics. The insurance industry is one of the biggest players in state politics, and we have collected new data on objective measures of the industry's performance in each state over time. We exploit within-state changes in campaign finance regulations which can significantly restrict the ability of corporate contributors to give money and potentially influence elected officials. Across a range of outcomes and campaign finance reforms, we find little evidence that the ability to make corporate campaign contributions benefits the insurance industry in a state. Some results suggest that the ability to make campaign contributions may benefit the insurance industry in states with elected insurance commissioners, but overall, campaign contributions appear to have a little distortionary effect even in a setting where we would most expect to find it.

Money and Ideology: Evidence from Candidate Manifestos

Do campaign contributions influence politicians? In this article, we study the impact of corporate donations on ideology and political discourse. We construct a novel dataset that combines the campaign manifestos issued by every candidate running for a seat in the French parliament with data on the amount and origin of their campaign contributions. We exploit an exogenous historical shock on corporate donations to estimate their causal impact on the content of campaign communication. Combining a difference-in-differences approach with computational text analysis, we show that receiving more donations from small and local corporate donors encourages candidates to advertise their local presence over national politics during the campaign. We also find evidence that donations lead candidates from extreme parties to moderate their rhetoric—including shifts in the policy topics they advertise. Our findings may reflect a quid-pro-quo effect between donors and politicians, but they may also result from an electoral effect: receiving expressive contributions from corporate donors affects the content of campaign messages because it changes candidates' perception of which issues matter most to voters. According to our findings, campaign finance regulations may alter the information made available to voters through their impact on candidates' rhetoric.

Accountability Dysfunction in Campaign Finance Regulations: A Case Study of the 2018 Jambi Simultaneous General Elections

The regulations of campaign finance have highly problematic for local electios (Pilkada) in Indonesia. However, the campaign finance system changed gradually over the following years, many alleged campaign violations committed by candidates during local elections. In this study, the researcher wants to assess campaign finance regulations based on the accountability concept. The measurement of accountability in the campaign finance regulations has been divided into two perspectives, which are legal and finance. The study used a qualitative method with a case study approach in Jambi's three regions, which held local elections (Pilkada) in 2018. This study argues that the current regulations have not solved the whole problem of campaign funds. The level of corruption by candidates remains stubbornly high due to less authority and weak sanctions. At the same time, most campaign finance regulations have never been enforced. As a result, revising Acts on the election, enhancing law enforcement, and raising public awareness need to promote for ensuring the quality of local democracy.

Do Campaign Finance Reforms Insulate Incumbents from Competition? New Evidence from State Legislative Elections

Variations in state campaign finance regulations across states and over time provide an opportunity to test the effects of reforms on the electoral success of incumbent state legislators. We use the most recent state legislative election returns dataset to test whether state campaign finance reforms help or hinder incumbents. Our analysis of nearly 66,000 contests in 33 years reveals that campaign contribution limits and partial public financing have little impact on incumbent reelection prospects. However, full public financing and prohibitions on corporate independent expenditures significantly increase the probability of incumbent reelection.

“Appearance of Corruption”: Linking Public Opinion and Campaign Finance Reform

At present, campaign finance regulations may only be justified if their primary purpose is to prevent quid pro quo corruption or the appearance of corruption. References to the “appearance of corru...

Prevent Violence, Strengthen Democracy: Electoral Codes of Conduct for the United States

As 2020 began, experts on political violence were already alarmed by increasing mass shootings, hate crimes, police killings, and political polarization in the United States. They did not imagine how much worse it would get: between the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, street protests in which Americans killed each other and the police attacked protesters, government disinformation campaigns, and incitement to violence by the President, we arrived at an Election Day when, as political scientist Brian Klaas put it, “all the red flags that you see in other countries that have political violence are being raised in the United States.” In those other countries – which are often transitioning to democratic governance after autocratic or military rule, wars, or mass violence – Western governments including the United States’ try to reduce the risk of violence by providing advice and funding to strengthen electoral systems. Codes of conduct for elections – typically agreements in which candidates and other members of political parties commit to uphold certain standards during and after an election campaign – is one tool they offer. The first such codes focused on technical matters like campaign finance regulation, but since the 1980s they have also tried to prevent election-related violence by discouraging certain types of speech and behavior. This includes dangerous speech, which we define as any form of expression (e.g. speech, text, or images) that can increase the risk that its audience will condone or participate in violence against members of another group. Such speech has abounded in the United States in recent years, and has become even more common and more potent in the final weeks of the campaign. Since this problem will not end with this election, we have examined electoral codes from around the world for attempts to guide or govern speech that might be used in the United States to reduce the risk of violence in future elections.

THE UNBUNDLED UNION

Public policy in the United States is disproportionately responsive to the wealthy, and the traditional response to this problem, campaign finance regulation, has failed. As students of politics have long recognized, however, political influence flows not only from wealth but also from organization, a form of political power open to all income groups. Accordingly, as this Essay argues, a promising alternative to campaign finance regulations is legal interventions designed to facilitate political organizing by the poor and middle class. To date, the most important legal intervention of this kind has been labor law, and the labor union has been the central vehicle for this type of organizing. But the labor union as a political-organizational vehicle suffers a fundamental flaw: unions bundle political organization with collective bargaining, a highly contested form of economic organization. As a result, opposition to collective bargaining impedes unions’ ability to serve as a political-organizing vehicle for lowerand middle-income groups. This Essay proposes that labor law unbundle the union, allowing employees to organize politically through the union form without also organizing economically for collective bargaining purposes. Doing so would have the immediate effect of liberating political-organizational efforts from the constraints of collective bargaining, an outcome that could mitigate representational inequality. The Essay identifies the legal reforms that would be necessary to enable such unbundled “political unions” to succeed. It concludes by looking beyond the union context and suggesting a broader regime of reforms aimed at facilitating political organizing by those income groups for whom representational inequality is now a problem.

Election Finance as a Challenge to Democracy in India: Legal, Policy and Institutional Challenges and Responses

India has been struggling to regulate campaign finances for long. A more recent addition to the predicament is the phenomenon of ‘paid news’. Different institutions, the Election Commission of India (EC) and the judiciary being the most active among them, have tried to address concerns surrounding campaign finance with mixed results. Despite their efforts, brazen over-spending beyond legislative limits has become the norm. This paper addresses the issue of campaign spending and maps out the legal regime administering it in India. The monitoring of campaign finance is legislatively entrusted with the EC. Yet actions of the EC are regularly challenged on the grounds of competency to inquire into the specifics of spending. The Supreme Court of India settled the issue of competence of the EC to investigate into campaign spending in Ashok Chavan v. Dr. Madhavrao Kinhalkar (Civil Appeal 5044 of 2014, SLP (C) No.29882 of 2011) through purposive interpretation of the relevant provisions of Representation of the People Act, 1951. Yet in doing so it arguably stretched itself to find this solution. Locating the power with the EC has raised further concerns pertaining to institutional limitations, procedural lacunae, necessity to have a clearer legal prescription, and natural justice issues. These are matters ideally to be dealt with by the legislature, which perhaps is unlikely given the lethargy of the Indian legislature. The article will help to understand the legal regime in India on regulation of campaign finance, and give a glimpse of how law is interpreted and managed by relevant Indian institutions. This paper also attempts to detail the practicalities of the working of campaign finance regulation in India and the need to revisit the same for achieving the desired objectives.