Spending Levels of Political Parties: An Explanation Based on a Multilevel Analysis

Abstract

This article examines the determinants of the annual overall spending levels of political parties from a comparative perspective. On the basis of a dataset with 1,317 observations from 99 parties in nine European parliamentary democracies, we illustrate that the spending levels of parties – calculated on the basis of Nassmacher’s index of political spending – have not systematically increased over the past decade. A multilevel analysis shows that, at the country level, spending levels are higher in countries with a longer tradition of public funding, a higher effective number of parties and a shorter democratic tradition. They are also higher in election years, but this effect is moderated when campaign spending limits apply. At the party level, spending levels increase with party strength and party age. Party ideology and government participation, on the other hand, do not have an effect.

Party fragmentation and campaign spending: A subnational analysis of the German party system

“…Furthermore, building on Blumenberg (2013) and Smulders and Maddens (2019b), we considered governmental status in our analysis. Our results indicate that being in government exerts slightly positive yet not statistically robust effects on campaign spending (H 3a ), while opposition status does not affect spending levels (H 3b ).…”

“…What do the empirical findings imply for our theoretical expectations derived from the literature? First, we assumed that the effective number of electoral parties, indicating intense or low party fragmentation, affects parties' campaign spending (H 1 ) (Smulders and Maddens, 2019b). In this line of argument, a higher ENEP should increase branches' campaign expenditures.…”

“…Most studies on party expenditure have been concerned with either scrutinising the often stated explosion of parties’ financial budgets (e.g. Nassmacher, 2009) or evaluating the relevance of spending limits in parties’ expenditure behaviour (Smulders and Maddens, 2019b). More generally, even though the broader party literature offers concepts to grasp the core components of party politics and the role of finances therein, these approaches have been mostly neglected in existing research into parties’ financial affairs.…”

“…Party expenditures provide a good proxy of the extent to which the organisation invests in participating in political competition. Previous scholarship has suggested two main factors influencing party expenditure, namely the form of political competition and governmental status (Smulders and Maddens, 2019a, 2019b).…”

Ciências Sociais Hoje: Ciência Política

“…Por fim, os dados sobre custos partidários apontam, no limite, para o custo das democracias. Saber o nível de gastos, quanto os partidos gastam em perspectiva comparada, permite concluir a direção e a robustez democráticas dos países Maddens, 2017). Gastos com manutenção da organização, com a contratação de profissionais de pesquisas eleitorais e comunicação política, processos de recrutamento e até mesmo de apoio de iniciativas parlamentares indicam como os partidos políticos têm modificado sua relação com a competição política nas democracias avançadas.…”