Political campaigns aimed at giving the electorate information about what parties would
do if they won the election have profound implications for their actual policies. That is
the conclusion of research by Professor Christian Schultz of the University of
Copenhagen, published in the July 2007 issue of the Economic Journal.
Such campaigns would at first sight seem beneficial from a social perspective as they
allow voters to make more informed choices. But this study shows that campaigns
affect policies in systematic ways, which are not necessarily related to the general
wellbeing of the electorate or fairness. Who gains and who loses is determined by the
parties’ strategic considerations.
Parties will target campaigns at those groups of voters for whom campaigns are most
effective in procuring votes. These are groups with many swing voters, with a high
turnout (and a high increase in turnout in response to campaigning) and groups where
the initial level of information is low. The campaigns will increase the level of
information in these groups and this in turn makes the parties offer these groups better
policies. In the end, these groups will benefit from the strategic campaigning.
Political campaigns are an important part of electoral democracies. Candidates spend
endless days on the campaign trail and parties spend huge amounts of campaign
money. According to the Federal Election Commission, the parties and candidates are
estimated to have spent roughly three billion dollars in the 2000 US electoral cycle.
Although the United States is probably the country where campaign money is most
important, campaign expenditures are increasing in most developed democracies, and
it is important to understand their impact on elections and policies. Clearly, the
campaigns have a purpose – to influence voters so that they are induced to vote for the
campaigning party – and it is well documented that they actually work.
Some campaigns work like nice advertisements, with no particular information content.
But parties also spend considerable resources on informative campaigns, informing the
electorate about their policies or perhaps about other parties' policies.
Informative campaigning creates a particular distribution of information in the electorate,
which in turn affects real policies. A voter group's information level is determined by the
parties' strategic incentives to gain most votes from the limited campaign money rather
than considerations of fairness.
This favours groups that already gain from the strategic struggle among the parties, the
mobile groups and the groups with high turnout. In this respect, informative
campaigning makes the distribution of policies across groups more unequal than if all
groups had the same level of information. And a limit on campaign spending (or
finances) would make for a more equal distribution in society.
But there is a countervailing effect: campaigns are also targeted at groups where the
level of information initially is low. These groups are initially disadvantaged, and
therefore equality may be enhanced by campaigning. One would often think of such
groups being less educated, low-income groups and campaigns may therefore benefit
such weak groups.
More receptive groups also gain. Whether these are less educated or more educated
groups is not obvious. Presumably, well-educated people are better at receiving
information, but if the information level of well-educated people is very high from news
coverage, then there is not much to learn. Empirical research suggests that the latter
effect is the most important.
ENDS
Notes for editors: ‘Strategic Campaigns and Redistributive Politics’ by Christian
Schultz is published in the July 2007 issue of the Economic Journal.
Christian Schultz is professor of economics at the University of Copenhagen.
For further information: contact Romesh Vaitilingam on 07768-661095 (email:
romesh@compuserve.com); or Christian Schultz via email:
Christian.Schultz@econ.ku.dk