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What explains how political donors decide where to give? Existing research indicates that people donate money to express support for a preferred political "team" and enjoy the emotional benefits of participating in politics. While this explains why people donate, it does little to help understand the different strategies that donors may pursue. In this paper, we use data on individual decisions as to where to allocate contributions to provide fresh insight into the strategies donors are pursuing. Our approach yields a much more nuanced view of campaign finance by showing how differently situated donors pursue divergent contribution strategies. Of particular note, we identify an influential class of engaged and wealthy political donors that spreads their dollars widely, especially focusing on giving to out-ofjurisdiction candidates. This illustrates just how influential the recent elimination of aggregate contribution limits may be in allowing a small share of donors to be broadly influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every judicial campaign year, millions of dollars pour into individual court races around the country. The bulk of that money is donated by lawyers, businesses, and others with financial interests in how judges, especially appellate judges, decide cases. United States Supreme Court rulings on political contributions and spending have hamstrung the ability of states to control largescale expenditures in judicial races. This essay reviews empirical research by political scientists who have documented the effect of large campaign donations on how judges decide cases and on the public's perception of court impartiality. It describes how legislatures and courts have addressed (or failed to address) the flood of money into judicial races. The essay then proposes a number of actions that state courts and legislatures could take to control judicial campaign spending. First, we recommend that in jurisdictions with inadequate statutory judicial campaign controls, state supreme courts should act forcefully to impose strict caps on both direct and coordinated contributions to judicial campaigns, using the American Bar Association's Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Rule 4.4(B)(1). Second, we suggest that state codes of judicial conduct should integrate the parallel mandatory disqualification mechanism in the ABA's Model Code of Judicial Conduct, Rule 2.11(A). Next, we contend that legislatures have sufficient cause under a strict scrutiny test to protect judicial impartiality and the appearance of impartiality by limiting total judicial campaign committee expenditures and controlling independent expenditures by outside groups. Further, we assert that if legislatures fail to act, the courts themselves have sufficient inherent authority to impose those expenditure limits. Finally, we urge states to adopt public funding systems for judicial campaigns, and we argue that the need for judicial impartiality should provide legislatures with sufficient cause to adopt restrictions that would not be constitutionally acceptable in non-judicial campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political campaigns have long been financed by people with well above average incomes, but the balance has tilted dramatically since the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. A number of jurisdictions have been looking to rebalance the incentives through new (or updated) public financing programs. Much of the discussion about their potential effects, however, has been sweepingly generic. But we know that these programs do differ from each other and have good reason to expect that "success" or "failure" will depend both on their goals and the programs' details. This article focuses on one type of program that has become a model in recent years. Until recently New York City was the only jurisdiction with a multiple matching system explicitly designed to increase the role of small donors. Previous studies noted apparent successes, but it has been difficult to feel comfortable with only one jurisdiction to test. After Los Angeles revised its system in 2013, serious comparisons became possible. This article finds that New York City's campaign finance matching fund program increased the number, proportional role, and diversity of small donors in city council elections but that the Los Angeles program was substantially less effective. The findings were confirmed through a difference-in-differences procedure that tested each city council over time against state legislative districts representing the same geographical space. A series of explanations relating to the programs' details were tested, leading us to conclude that the policy details were affecting the results. The results were also different in both cities for mayoral and city council candidates. This suggests alterations may be needed if one were to consider the model for offices with larger constituencies, such as Governor or the US Congress. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of major arguments for and against increasing small donor participation as a goal for public policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of the United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union, known as Brexit, scholars of international affairs have a chance to reflect on what this unanticipated event means for global politics. Many scholars have started applying standard political economy models based on the distributional consequences of trade or the sociotropic sources of individual policy positions to understand voter preferences. In this essay, we move the conversation using the lever of the New Interdependence Approach to reflect on the referendum process more generally. Rather than viewing globalization largely as an exogenous shock that is filtered through national institutions and cleavages, we argue that it has the potential to alter the political issue space as well as the institutional opportunities available to political actors. In conclusion, we push scholars of both comparative politics and international relations to develop a research agenda for electoral politics in an age of interdependence. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using a long panel of roll call voting data, I find that 'flip-flopping' senators face significant electoral costs when changing positions. In models of electoral competition, as the costs to candidates changing position approach zero, the equilibrium prediction is the convergence of platforms. Such convergence is at odds with empirical observation. Using a dynamic, structural model of candidate positioning, I identify the nature of the costs associated with changing position that may result in such non-convergence. ( JEL D72, C61, H11) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political campaigns raise millions of dollars each election cycle. While past research provides valuable insight into who these donors are and why they are motivated to give, little research takes into account the actions of political campaigns. This paper examines why and how campaigns target habitual donors for political donations. Using the 2004 Campaign Communication Survey, a national survey of registered voters who were asked to collect and send in all campaign mail they received during the last 3 weeks of a campaign, we show that campaigns send donation solicitations predominantly to individuals who have previously donated to a campaign. We also show that campaigns match targeting fundraising appeals to the potential motivations for giving: campaigns target the type of fundraising appeal they use, whether ideological, solidary, or material, to match the socioeconomic and partisan characteristics of the potential donor. The implication of effective targeting is that the 'unequal' voice of participation in campaign contributions is not one-sided and simply resource based, but rather that campaigns also contribute to the situation with targeted messages to potential donors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1972, campaign spending by House incumbents has skyrocketed, particularly in those districts with marginal support for the incumbent's party. At the same time, parties in the House have become much more cohesive in the way they vote, producing more precise and informative party brands. We argue that these two phenomena are fundamentally linked. As parties have developed more precise reputations, incumbents in these districts must spend much more to attract voters in “marginal” districts, who would be willing to vote for a candidate with the particular incumbent's legislative record, but not the average member of his party. Increasingly precise party reputations provide voters with stronger priors that incumbents are just like the rest of their party, and incumbents in marginal districts must spend more to overcome these beliefs. We demonstrate this using a simple formal model and test it empirically using campaign-spending data from 1972 to 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1999, the year before Ghana's 2000 election, the country experienced a large, unexpected decline in aid. The incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) lost the election. Did the decline in aid hurt the NDC at the polls, or was it simply incidental? Using data from a national, World Bank-funded electrification project, this article shows that the NDC was able to allocate aid according to explicitly political criteria. The article also exploits a quasi-experiment in aid disbursements to show that electrification caused NDC voting to increase in the constituencies that received electrification. Pre-electoral aid fluctuations exert a modest but measurable force on voting patterns. These findings add weight to calls for donors to coordinate to reduce aid volatility. They also show that incumbent governments can allocate aid strategically to secure votes, even under the best-case scenario of strict donor monitoring in an established democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the legal aspects of American political advertising as of May 2012, focusing on the economic challenges faced by political candidates and an analysis of the influence of lobbyists on political campaigns. Voter apathy and the costs associated with political advertisements on television and radio are addressed, along with an examination of several legal cases including the U.S. Supreme Court case Buckley v. Valeo.

The author discusses the financing of political parties in Great Britain as of April 2012, focusing on potential reforms and describing his experiences with a reform negotiation group in 2007. Topics include the history of election spending and campaign finance in Great Britain since the 1880s and an initiative from the Committee on Standards of Conduct in Public Life. Potential reforms mentioned include a limit for donations, the potential public financing of political parties, and general campaign expenditure reductions. The politician Tony Blair is mentioned.

Contrary to what an important part of the theory says, campaign expenditure has a significant effect on the electoral success of incumbents in the House of Representatives elections of 2005 in Chile. Moreover, electoral performance of expenditure is greater for those candidates with more than one period in office. Campaign expenditure not only adds to the ''incumbency advantages'' of incumbents, but multiplies their effect on electoral performance. Secondly, it is assessed that incumbents who won in 2001 by greater margins in their coalition tend to show greater campaign expenditures (contrary to what was expected). On one hand, this fact is coherent with the idea that candidates tend to perceive that their expenses multiply their qualities and do not present diminishing returns. This behavior is also reinforced by rationale of the public campaign financing, which reimburses money according to votes attained and makes, as theory suggests that the decision to spend be influenced by the expectations of getting a greater subsidy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive effects of campaign spending on electoral outcomes have been found in several comparative, multiparty contexts, but very few of these systems use proportional representation. The few studies examining spending effects in multiparty elections have found that incumbent spending is no less effective than challenger spending, contrary to the vast bulk of empirical literature drawn from single-member district contexts. This study reexamines incumbent-challenger differences in spending effects under the single transferable vote. Examining the Irish general elections of 2002, the authors find a positive and statistically significant relationship between spending and votes. Candidates that spend more win more votes, and outspending one's rivals means winning more of the vote share. Spending more also directly increases a candidate's chance of winning a seat. Finally, incumbent spending is considerably less effective than spending by challengers from other parties but no less effective than spending by challengers from a candidate's own party. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most studies of the impact of local campaign expenditure on British election results have found that expenditure by incumbents has less of an effect on the outcome than does that by challengers. Some argue that this, in part, reflects an underestimate of how much is spent by incumbents because it excludes their expenditure under various parliamentary allowances which facilitates contacts between MPs and their constituents. Data on spending under those allowances are now available and are used here to evaluate its impact at the 2005 general election in England. The analyses show that only expenditure by Conservative MPs had any impact on their re-election chances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a model that calls into question some longstanding presumptions about incumbency advantage. Our results show that increases in some of the ostensible benefits of incumbency frequently cited in the empirical and theoretical literature make it difficult for voters to differentiate incumbents of higher and lower quality. While this leads to an improvement in the electoral prospects of lower-quality incumbents, it is harmful to those of higher quality. Whether the net electoral consequence for high-quality incumbents is positive or negative depends on whether the source of incumbency advantage affects candidate entry and exit decisions directly or indirectly, as mediated through voters' choices. Our findings suggest, further, that fundamental tensions may exist between different sources of incumbency advantage, and point to obstacles to disaggregating the sources of incumbency advantage empirically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What strategy does a rational party follow in allocating discretionary expenditure? This article conceives redistributive politics as an investment strategy where expenditure allocations respond to electoral risk. To show the effects of risk, it provides evidence from Pronasol in Mexico and an analysis of New Deal spending in the United States. The analysis finds that the federal administrations in both countries responded to systematic electoral risk. Spending diversification into risky voters was a rational response to chances of losing elections. The analysis hence connects electoral volatility with redistributive spending. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on Connecticut's adoption of a full public financing law as an alternative to the traditional private funding system. It provides details of how corruption in the state triggered the desire for reform and examines the proposals introduced by Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell on January 5, 2005, including a ban on lobbyist and state contractor campaign contributions. It also offers lessons for citizens and lawmakers seeking similar reform in other states as well as at the national level.

The article presents an examination of the historical and contemporary movement towards the public financing of political campaigns in the United States. The article discusses the history of political campaigns in the U.S., noting that it wasn't until after the Civil War that money in politics became a concern. The author discusses the evolution of public financing for political candidates as well as the types of public financing programs the have existed in the U.S. The article also discusses key events that have shaped campaign financing in the U.S.

The article presents an overview of local government public financing reform in the United States. It examines the history of public campaign financing at the local government level dating back to the 1970s. The author provides information on the implementation of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act and discusses the history of campaign finance reform on the national level. The author examines elements of public financing systems and discusses achievements of local government public financing programs in a number of U.S. cities.

Examines the role of money in state legislative campaigns in an analysis of incumbent funding in primary and general elections in the United States. Evaluation on the amounts raised, sources of funds, and effects of spending on election outcomes; Impact of money on candidacy decisions; Significance of money in the collection of campaign treasuries or 'war chests.'

Examines the proposals to permit restrictions on political campaign expenditures by politicians and issue groups. Analysis on the nature of expenditures and their sources; Implications for press freedom and the tenet on free speech; Social and economic effects of the proposed limitations on political contributions.

Focuses on the empirical evidence in the debate over the proposed reform of political campaign finance regulation in the United States. Corrupt practices in campaign fund donations; Details on the imposition of price controls on the donation of campaign funds; Relation of the donor's political activity to the policies of the politicians; Discussion on the campaigns of presidential candidates.

Presents information on a study that examined the effect of the change of standard of living as a consequence of government policies on voting behavior and support for the Conservative Party as of the 1997 General Election in England and Wales using the economic models. Statistical data; Discussion on egocentric, sociotropic and altruistic voting and voters; Discussion on the reinforcement interactive effects among variables.

Analyzes the supply and demand side of campaign finance reform in the United States. Impact of overemphasis to limit the supply of private money to the reform; Failure to acknowledge the need of politicians for money in their quest for public office; Analysis of Supreme Court jurisprudence; Necessity of emphasizing the demand side in the reform.

Focuses on the influence of money in political campaigns. Allocation of funds by political action committees (PAC); PAC contributions as a share of total campaign contribution; Findings that relatively little money flows into political campaigns; Distinction between campaign contributions to candidates and political action committees.

Discusses a study which examined the role of money in political campaigns and its effect on election outcomes. Correlation between incumbents' expenditures and victory margin; Relationship between challenger's expenditures and the closeness of the race; Factor that determines the closeness of an election.