Search results
home Home navigate_next Search results

Search results

Abstract

In a political campaign, candidates attempt to mobilize voters by using contributions from individuals, corporations, and political parties. It is an accepted fact of democracy that campaigns should attempt to outdo one another in both the amount they collect in contributions and what they spend on campaigns. Previous research has explored the incumbent advantage in campaign finance, but many interesting factors remain. For instance, is fund-raising aided by factors such as the closeness of an election or a candidate’s tenure in the Legislative Yuan? In this study, we explain campaign contributions using data from prediction markets and television news reports to account for variations in campaign spending. Our results suggest that incumbent advantage does indeed affect contributions and that DPP candidates outperformed other candidates in campaign finance. We also find that previous electoral margins and television news coverage contribute significantly to campaign donations, and that election betting has an impact on spending. These findings suggest that a political party’s general campaign can influence the election race of an individual candidate, and that contributors tend to bet on likely winners, deepening the influence of the electoral system on competing political parties.

Abstract

Disclosure is the most important means by which citizens in a democracy obtain information about money in electoral politics, and as such, the efficacy of the political finance disclosure determines, to a significant extent, what and how much we know about the actual workings of a political finance system. This study assesses political finance disclosure in Taiwan. While recognizing that sanctions against false disclosure are bound to be under-enforced, this study argues that loopholes in the coverage of the disclosure rules are the main culprits for the “dark money” in Taiwan politics. This study calls for a structural overhaul of the existing regime, the institutional performance of which is seriously hindered by a conventional misunderstanding of the purpose of political finance disclosure. In addition to tracking transactions of political finance at the retail level for the sake of informing voters and enforcing other rules governing political finance, an effective disclosure regime should strive to provide citizens with information about macro-political finance.