Jef Smulders

Buying Local Votes: The Effect of Individual Campaign Spending Under a Semi-Open PR System in the Belgian Local Elections

Abstract This article analyses the effect of campaign spending on the individual result of party candidates in the Belgian local elections. An analysis of data concerning the 2012 local elections in the Flemish region shows that candidates who spend more in absolute terms or outspend their rivals (at the list and the municipality level) obtain a better result, even though the size of the effect is small. Contrary to what was found for national elections, there are indications that spending affects the odds of obtaining a seat in the local council. The spending effect tends to be weaker for candidates holding an executive office in the municipality.

How legislative gender quotas affect the gender gap in campaign spending: An analysis of the federal and regional elections in Belgium

ABSTRACT Research on the link between gender and campaign finance in proportional electoral systems suggests that the campaign expenses of female parliamentary candidates are significantly lower than those of male candidates. On the basis of data on 10,436 candidates for nine consecutive elections in Belgium (1991–2014), this article examines whether there is indeed a gender gap in campaign expenses, and in particular whether this coincides with the introduction of legislative quota laws in the Belgian flexible-list system. We distinguish between realistic candidates that run for election from winnable list positions and unrealistic candidates running from lower ranked positions. The results show that, among unrealistic candidates, the gender gap in campaign spending arose again after the introduction of more severe gender quotas. With regard to realistic list positions, however, the significant difference between male and female candidates in the most strict quota phase disappeared, indicating that female realistic candidates were able to catch up financially with their male counterparts. The Belgian experience could provide useful insights for other countries with flexible-list systems regarding the implementation of legislative gender quotas.

How and why do political parties differ in their spending patterns? An empirical analysis of expenditure on party payroll staff:

Despite the pivotal role of payroll staff within political parties’ central offices, research on the staff expenses of parties remains scarce. In this article, we study the relative staff expenses of political parties, that is staff costs as a percentage of total annual expenses. We analyse which factors explain the differences between parties’ relative staff expenses, based on a dataset of 590 individual observations representing 52 parties from seven European countries. The multivariate model shows that relative staff expenses are higher among left-oriented parties and that they increase with party age, party membership figures and the number of years a party has been in government, while they decrease with party income. Relative staff expenses also decrease with the effective number of parties in the party system, and they are lower in election years.