Political Finance Database

Following a review of the previous International IDEA database on political finance, an expert group provided advice on the development of a new set of questions and gave guidance on the project's direction. The questions added in the 2018 update were thus meant to outline a wider integrity-enhanced approach to addressing corruption within a given country, region and continent, but have since been dismantled due to complications in data-collection.

The database now includes in total of 15 additional questions to the original 43 research questions. This provides a more holistic overview of the role of money in politics. To further ensure its relevance, we sought internal and external input to the process, including from an expert-level meeting with relevant actors in the field held at International IDEA. This was further supplemented with continuous internal monitoring of changes within the field.

To capture a wide range of political finance regulations in the database, we decided to only exclude countries that fell into one or more of the below categories:

• Political parties are de jure not allowed to exist (legally banned)
• No elections have been held during the last 30 years

This left us with 181 countries. Despite the quantity, and in some cases the complexity of questions, the response rate was high with substantive answers from all countries.

For the 2023 update, over 18 independent researchers from around the world were provided with coding instructions and asked to answer each of the 58 questions. A comprehensive collection of more than 200 laws, reports and other documents was collected. Their dedication has been indispensable for the update of the database, for which International IDEA is very grateful. Please look at the Acknowledgement section for a more detailed presentation of all researchers involved.

A group of experts assisted by verifying the recorded answers and suggesting changes or additions wherever possible. While not all the country data was verified in this manner, this process significantly increased the reliability of the data. We hope that users of the database will also assist us by leaving feedback regarding any incorrect or missing information (see further below). We cannot guarantee that the 11,000+ answers are entirely error-free. We apologize for any inaccuracies.

Provisions relating to the financing of political parties are sometimes found in laws other than electoral or political party legislation. This can make it difficult to find all of the legal provisions regulating political finance. Some may be found in tax laws, special laws governing the operation of political parties, or laws relating to the media, private companies, trade unions or other bodies. Furthermore, provisions may be found in decrees, subsidiary legislation or regulations.

We asked researchers primarily to use legislation from each country. If relevant legislation could not be found, written sources such as election reports or political analyses were sought. For some regions, organizations focusing on campaign finance have provided much relevant information for a number of countries, such as the Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) and the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA). Experts from various countries such as electoral management body (EMB) officials, academics or independent observers also assisted researchers in finding relevant information. The sources used in the database are listed under relevant questions.

One problem with collecting and coding data of this kind is that if a certain provision does not exist in a country, it may be difficult to find other relevant information. For example, if a country does not use public funding of political parties, it is very unlikely that this is stated in legislation (it will be the result of an absence of rules regarding such funding). Deciding to automatically exclude cases where explicit information could not be found would have created a bias in the answers, as most countries where such provisions do not exist would be coded as "no information", and only countries where such provisions exist would be coded at all. There is, in other words, an asymmetry in how many provisions are included in legislation—if they exist there will be a direct reference whereas if they do not exist no mention of the issue will be included in the law.

In such cases, the researchers were instructed to seek other sources that could provide information (such as election observation reports, analyses of the political party situation in a country or input from an expert). In cases where confirmation of the absence of a provision could not be found from other sources, a judgement was made regarding the likelihood that the issue could be governed in regulatory documents not accessible to the researcher. Where the researcher had access to the relevant electoral and political party legislation and did not find any references to other legislation or similar documents that may be pertinent, they were instructed to answer "no" to questions regarding provisions not mentioned in any of these sources. For some questions where it is likely that provisions may exist in other legislation than that related to elections or political parties, these cases are coded as "no data". We believe that this is the best approach to dealing with the issue of non-regulation. Please refer to the Coding Instructions for more information.

In a database covering over 180 countries with more than 11,000 individual answers, it is impossible to capture all the nuances that may exist in the regulations in a given country. For example, there may be different rules for different types of candidates, or about political parties in different regions of the same country (the focus of the answers is on national level regulations).

The questions have, in most cases been worded as "Is there a ban on..." or "Are there provisions for...". These questions have been answered "yes" if there are any cases of bans or provisions, even if these are only limited in scope. For example, if there is a ban on corporate donations to Presidential but not to Parliamentary candidates, the question has been answered "yes", with details provided under "comments" (click on any answer to see these). The quotes provided for the answers will, in many cases provide additional information about the regulatory situation in each country.

With such a mass of data, a major challenge becomes how to keep track of legislative and other changes that will necessitate differences in how questions have been answered. International IDEA intends to conduct regular updates of the database, but in the meantime, we welcome any suggestions for updates or corrections, or to add missing data. For each answer in the database, there is an opportunity for users to make such suggestions, and International IDEA will consider each carefully.

This section (questions 1-27) covers regulations that restrict who is allowed to contribute to political parties or candidates and the amount that a donor can contribute. These regulations are designed to prevent undesirable actors from unduly influencing the political sphere.

Questions 1-12 cover bans on donations from certain sources including foreign donors, corporate donors, trade unions, companies with partial government ownership or government contracts, and anonymous sources.

Question 13 cover bans on abuse of state resources.

Questions 14-22 cover caps on actual donations and in-kind donations to political parties and candidates, in-kind donations.

Questions 23-27 cover restrictions on political parties and candidates in relation to their commercial activities, taking loans and participating in public procurement processes.

This section (questions 28-37) covers the provision of direct and indirect public funding to political parties and candidates. Advocates of public funding argue such measures can counteract the negative influence of private money in politics, help to strengthen the capacity of political parties and level the electoral playing field.

Questions 38-31 cover whether direct public funding exists, and if so what the eligibility and allocation criteria are and whether there are provisions for how such funds should be used.

Questions 32-35 cover the provision of free or subsidized media access to political parties and candidates, and if any other forms of public funding are provided.

Questions 36-37 ask if financial incentives are provided to promote gender equality among candidates.

This section (questions 38-46) covers rules on the amount and type of expenditure political parties and candidates can make. These rules seek to curb undesirable spending, to decrease the advantage of those with access to significant resources, and to reduce overall spending on election campaigns.

Questions 38-43 address bans on vote buying and spending limits by political parties, candidates and third parties.

Questions 44-46 cover spending limits on media advertisements.

This section (questions 47-58) addresses the requirements for financial reporting, oversight of political finance regulations and available sanctions. Without effective disclosure and monitoring, transparency cannot be achieved, and it is unlikely that political actors will respect rules such as contribution bans and spending limits.

Questions 47-54 cover issues of financial reporting by political parties and candidates, as well as whether such reports must include itemized information, disclose individual donors' data and if they are required to be made public.

Questions 55-58 cover the mandates on institution(s) that receive financial reports, investigate potential breaches or other responsibilities in relation to political finance oversight and asset disclosure.

Most definitions of direct public funding only include extra-parliamentary support. i.e. funds exclusively to support parliamentary party groups (travel allowances etc.) and not MPs' salaries. If this is the only available form of state public funding, we have answered "no" to Q30 about direct public funding. For more information pertaining to other types of indirect funding, please go to question 37.

This is a database focusing on the formal regulations in different countries, not on actual implementation. This means that, when answering the questions, the formal rules should be followed. If you find information that contribution limits are routinely ignored or that public funding has been distributed on an ad hoc basis, the answer should still be based on the formal regulation.

Simply email us if anything like this arises: politicalfinancedb@idea.int.