Fouirnaies,
Alexander (2015) Essays on Campaign
Finance and Political Power. PhD Thesis, LSE-UK.
This thesis is concerned with the influence of
campaign finance on the interplay between political power and electoral
competition in the United States and the United Kingdom. The thesis considers
both the donation and expenditure sides of campaign finance: In the context of
U.S. state and federal legislative elections (1980-2014), I study how political
power affects the allocation of campaign contributions, and in the context of
U.K. House of Commons elections (1885-2010), I examine how campaign spending
restrictions affect political power via electoral behavior. The three papers
which make up the construct of the thesis answer the following questions: (i)
What is the financial value of incumbency status, and who generates it? (ii)
Who values legislative agenda setters, and why do they do so? (iii) What are
the electoral consequences of statutory limits on campaign expenditure? I argue
that campaign donors make their contributions to powerful politicians in
exchange for access to the policy-making process, and that the power of these
politicians is sustained, at least in part, due to these contributions. In the
first paper, I document that U.S. incumbent legislators enjoy sizeable
financial advantages compared to challengers, and I demonstrate that this
advantage is the result of donations from access-seeking industries. In the
second paper, I show that U.S. legislators who are institutionally endowed with
agenda-setting powers are given special treatment by campaign donors. I
document that donors with vested economic interests in regulatory policy place
great value on agenda-setting legislators – in particular when institutions
provide these legislators with the authority to block new legislation. In the
final paper, I study the consequences of campaign spending limits in the
context of U.K. House of Commons elections. I show that unrestrained spending
reduces electoral competition, promotes professionalized campaigns, and
benefits incumbents and center right parties.
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