Campaign Effects in European Democracies: The Relationship Between Financial Resources and Electoral Performance
(2025) STVM25 20242Department of Political Science
- Abstract
- Political campaigns are a recurring phenomenon in liberal democracies. However, scholars remain undecided about the extent of their effectiveness and have focused heavily on the United States and the United Kingdom. This thesis expands by quantitatively analyzing the relationship between political parties’ financial resources and electoral performance across twelve European democracies. It also zooms in on the relationship at the Swedish local level. The research question is as follows: How do the financial resources used during election campaigns affect electoral performance in general elections across European democracies?
The theoretical expectations are derived from the Resource Mobilization theory with a hypothesis that financial... (More) - Political campaigns are a recurring phenomenon in liberal democracies. However, scholars remain undecided about the extent of their effectiveness and have focused heavily on the United States and the United Kingdom. This thesis expands by quantitatively analyzing the relationship between political parties’ financial resources and electoral performance across twelve European democracies. It also zooms in on the relationship at the Swedish local level. The research question is as follows: How do the financial resources used during election campaigns affect electoral performance in general elections across European democracies?
The theoretical expectations are derived from the Resource Mobilization theory with a hypothesis that financial resources are positively associated with electoral performance. In most models, the association is statistically significant. However, it also tends to be very small. This suggests that financial resources only play a marginal if any, role in European (national) and Swedish (local) electoral performance. Hence, the answer to the research question is that financial resources are unlikely to affect electoral performance to any meaningful extent.
The study relies primarily on regression analysis and cannot establish a causal relationship. However, it can serve as a potential starting point for future research with causal ambitions. Research that could dive deeper into the differences in campaign effects depending on electoral systems. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9179385
- author
- Bengtsson, Robert LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- STVM25 20242
- year
- 2025
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Political campaigns, Campaign spending, Electoral performance, Campaign effects, Swedish campaign effects
- language
- English
- id
- 9179385
- date added to LUP
- 2025-03-04 11:54:06
- date last changed
- 2025-03-04 11:54:06
@misc{9179385,
abstract = {{Political campaigns are a recurring phenomenon in liberal democracies. However, scholars remain undecided about the extent of their effectiveness and have focused heavily on the United States and the United Kingdom. This thesis expands by quantitatively analyzing the relationship between political parties’ financial resources and electoral performance across twelve European democracies. It also zooms in on the relationship at the Swedish local level. The research question is as follows: How do the financial resources used during election campaigns affect electoral performance in general elections across European democracies?
The theoretical expectations are derived from the Resource Mobilization theory with a hypothesis that financial resources are positively associated with electoral performance. In most models, the association is statistically significant. However, it also tends to be very small. This suggests that financial resources only play a marginal if any, role in European (national) and Swedish (local) electoral performance. Hence, the answer to the research question is that financial resources are unlikely to affect electoral performance to any meaningful extent.
The study relies primarily on regression analysis and cannot establish a causal relationship. However, it can serve as a potential starting point for future research with causal ambitions. Research that could dive deeper into the differences in campaign effects depending on electoral systems.}},
author = {{Bengtsson, Robert}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Campaign Effects in European Democracies: The Relationship Between Financial Resources and Electoral Performance}},
year = {{2025}},
}