Bang for the Buck: Brazil's Electoral and Political Financing Rules From a Gendered Perspective

Abstract

The following paper discusses gender and campaign financing, using the Brazilian case as to demonstrate how these factors, combined with the electoral system, affect women's success in elections. Brazil is a strong example because it uses a proportional representation system with open list, federalism, and large district magnitudes. This results in a large number of individualistic campaigns. Data from state and federal elections (2002-2018) was collected and analysed, with the introduction of a new measure, amount spent per vote. The results show that women do not benefit as much as men from an incumbent bump, and that funding is better distributed among men, leaving a few elite women as likely winners. Overall, elected women spend 22% more than elected men per vote on their path to office. This partly explains, along with the other factors analysed throughout the paper, the gender gap in Brazilian political representation.