Street fighters and media stars: The effectiveness of different campaign strategies in Brazilian proportional elections

• In Event: Election, Campaigns and Party Survival

Abstract

Analysis of campaign funding in Brazil has become a field of research for scholars interested in either explaining the amount of campaign donations or measuring the impact of campaign spending on voting and public policies. Papers from this latter strand focusing on the voting record of candidates typically use total spending as explanatory variable. The Tribunal Superior Eleitoral identifies more than 30 different spending items, such as rent, food, newspaper ads, campaign rallies, radio and tv spots, research and else. We use factor analysis to regroup different items into a limited number of types of spending. We expect that this procedure will allow us to identify two different types of spending: traditional spending on 'campaigning in the street' and modern spending on 'campaigning in radio, TV and internet'. Our main hypothesis is that traditional spending proves more important than modern spending for candidates in proportional elections (lower house national and subnational lawmakers). The target variable is voting record of candidates in 2014 (2010 in case data were not available in time) elections in Brazil. We use gender, incumbency and party membership as control variables. The analysis suggests that current research in Brazil has focused on sources of donations and has not given much attention to the dynamics of how candidates and parties allocate campaign resources.

Authors

• Bruno W Speck, USP

• Wagner Pralon Mancuso, Universidade de São Paulo