Jo Noppe

Effects of Campaign Spending in an Open List PR System: The 2003 Legislative Elections in Flanders/Belgium

In countries with a majoritarian electoral system, the expenses of challengers are generally found to have a stronger effect on the electoral outcome than the expenses of incumbents. Research on campaign expenditure effects in Brazil suggests that this is not the case in countries with an open list PR system and large districts. This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of the effect of individual campaign expenses on the number of preferential votes in the 2003 legislative elections in Flanders/Belgium. An analysis of high quality candidates shows that the expenses have a substantial effect on the vote which does not vary according to incumbency status. However, the effect of media exposure on the vote is stronger than and largely independent of the effect of campaign expenses.

Explaining the Evolution of the Party Finance Regime in Belgium

Abstract Belgian political parties have been receiving state funding since 1971, but the parliament only started to introduce legislation on party and campaign funding in 1989 and has repeatedly changed the regime since then. This article discusses the basic characteristics and the main developments of the Belgian political finance regime. Four possible explanatory factors mentioned in the literature are discussed: the occurrence of political corruption, changes in party organization, the financing strategies of parties and the geographical or institutional proximity to other political systems. The analysis confirms that the combination of these different factors provides an explanation for the creation of, and subsequent changes to, the political finance system in Belgium. On occasions, one factor prevails, but in general several factors have to be taken into account simultaneously. In addition, Belgium’s institutional development – in particular the federalization process – has created an opportunity framework for parties to obtain more state funding.