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Helping Friends or Influencing Foes: Electoral and Policy Effects of Campaign Finance Contributions

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  • Keith E. Schnakenberg
  • Ian R. Turner

Abstract

Campaign finance contributions may influence policy by affecting elections or influencing the choices of politicians once in office. To study the trade‐offs between these two paths to influence, we use a game in which contributions may affect electoral outcomes and signal policy‐relevant information to politicians. In the model, a campaign donor and two politicians each possess private information correlated with a policy‐relevant state of the world. The donor may allocate his or her budget to either an ally candidate who has relatively similar preferences or a moderate candidate whose preferences are relatively divergent from the donor's preferred policy. Contributions that increase the likelihood of the moderate being elected can signal good news about the donor's preferred policy and influence the moderate's policy choice. However, when the electoral effect of contributions is too small to demand sufficiently high costs to deter imitation by groups with negative information, this informational effect breaks down.

Suggested Citation

  • Keith E. Schnakenberg & Ian R. Turner, 2021. "Helping Friends or Influencing Foes: Electoral and Policy Effects of Campaign Finance Contributions," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 88-100, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:amposc:v:65:y:2021:i:1:p:88-100
    DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12534
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Formal Theories of Special Interest Influence," SocArXiv 47e26, Center for Open Science.
    2. Cox, Christian, 2022. "Dark Money in Congressional House Elections," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    3. Little, Andrew T., 2022. "Bayesian Explanations for Persuasion," OSF Preprints ygw8e, Center for Open Science.
    4. Park, Hyungmin & Squintani, Francesco, 2024. "The Choice of Political Advisors," QAPEC Discussion Papers 23, Quantitative and Analytical Political Economy Research Centre.
    5. Schnakenberg, Keith & Turner, Ian R, 2023. "Dark Money and Politician Learning," SocArXiv 3bzex, Center for Open Science.
    6. Noble, Benjamin S. & Turner, Ian R, 2024. "Presidential Leadership and Legislative Polarization," SocArXiv sa9ke, Center for Open Science.
    7. Thanh Le & Erkan Yalcin, 2023. "Endogenous expropriation and political competition," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(1), pages 313-332, March.
    8. James Rockey & Nadia Zakir, 2021. "Power and the money, money and the power: A network analysis of donations from American corporate to political leaders," Discussion Papers 21-03, Department of Economics, University of Birmingham.
    9. Bils, Peter & Duggan, John & Judd, Gleason, 2021. "Lobbying and policy extremism in repeated elections," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    10. Andrew T Little, 2023. "Bayesian explanations for persuasion," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 35(3), pages 147-181, July.

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