Espino, Yzabel R.

2011-00682

The Effect of Campaign Spending on the Perception of Filipino Voters in an

Election
What is the effect of the various aspects of campaign spending on the perceptions of
Filipino voters in an election? Running for office could be very expensive and time-consuming.
There are various aspects candidates can spend on like motorcades, rallies, fliers, posters, and
etc. I believe that these can influence the decision of Filipino voters, but the question is, by how
much and up to what degree? Are these resources really helpful for candidates to win?
The purpose of this study is to get to know whether campaign spending really caters to
Filipino voters. It aims to give an insight whether how candidates spend their resources and how
voters perceive their efforts are in sync. This study will be able to suggest ways to improve and
reform elections in the Philippines to level the playing field between candidates. Also, it could
make campaigns more effective and fair to minimize the inefficient use of limited resources and
give candidates who have fewer resources an equal chance to win.
This study argues that campaign spending, in general, has an effect on the perceptions of
voters. However, some aspects of it are less influential than other aspects, thus this would lead to
a waste of resources. This study believes that the resources used on advertising on television are
the most influential and thus, most candidates utilize this the most in their campaigns.
As for the data, the study will use data from Nielsens (2013) global trust in advertising
survey to determine the aspects of a campaign that are influential for voters. Because of the
similar nature between advertising and campaigning, this study believes that advertising has the
same effect as campaigning. Both are strategies used to inform and persuade people to act in the
favor of those who employ it. The forms of advertising from Nielsen will be matched to the
aspects of campaign spending. The data from Nielsen will be compared with the campaign
spending data from the 2013 Philippine Senatorial Elections which will be retrieved from
COMELEC. The study will determine whether or not campaign spending done by candidates are
in sync with the electorates trust of the various aspects of campaigning.
Since the study will be using data from Nielsens global trust in advertising survey
conducted in 2013, it will only be limited to the 2013 elections as well. The unit of analysis will
be the candidates campaign spending per aspect. The data set will compose of 31 senators.

Ando, Hirofumi. 1969. A Study of Voting Patterns in the Philippine Presidential and Senatorial
Elections, 1946-1965. Midwest Journal of Political Science 13 (4): 567-586. Retrieved
from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2110072. (Accessed: 1 February 2015).
This article is an aggregate and longitudinal study of the voting patterns of the Filipinos
in the presidential and senatorial elections from 1946 to 1965. The unit of analysis is the
province. It looks at how party affiliation, party identification, cultural-linguistic affiliation, and
socio-economic status of Filipino voters affect the election results. The analysis of the data
showed that although there is no strong sense of party affiliation among voters in the Philippines,
linguistic affiliation is strong in both presidential and senatorial elections. This implies that
Filipinos are not inclined to support political parties, but are more likely to vote for candidates
who come from the same province or speak the same language as them Although the study is
very comprehensive in its examination of voting patterns in the Philippines, it cannot be accurate
in todays time since 50 years has passed since it was conducted.
Bartels, Larry M. 1985. Resource Allocation in a Presidential Campaign. The Journal of
Politics 47 (3): 928-936. Retrieved from: http://jstor.org/stable/2131218. (Accessed 1
February 2015).
This article discusses how presidential campaigns allocate campaign resources. It makes
use of the 1976 Carter presidential campaign. The study describes the pattern that campaign
resources allocation takes in a presidential election. Instrumental resources like advertising funds
and campaign appearances are used more often in populous states. On the other hand, ornamental
resources like state-level organizational funds and personnel were used variously. It was also
noted that resources were spent less on the things used in grass-roots campaigning like leaflets,
stickers, and etc. The allocation of resources to this aspect of campaign spending was only to
placate supporters who are used to the traditional way of doing elections and campaigning.
Benoit, Kenneth and Marsh, Michael. 2010. Incumbent and Challenger Campaign Spending
Effects in Proportional Electoral Systems: The Irish Elections Of 2002. Political
Research
Quarterly 63
(1):
159-173.
Retrieved
from:
http://search.proquest.com/docview/215320472?accountid=141440. (Accessed: 29
January 2015).
This cross-sectional study looks at the effects of campaign spending in a proportional
representation system and analyzes the Irish general elections of 2002. Unlike other previous
studies, the authors debunk the notion that incumbent spending is much less effective than
challenger spending. Also, in a proportional system that employs a single transferal vote, the
study finds that candidates who spend more get more votes. Thus, winning elections can just be a
matter of outspending ones rival and even ones own party mates. The authors also tackle why
there is variation in campaign spending. Spending varies because of candidates access to funds
and the necessity of spending. Thus, tight elections have candidates spending more resources.

Ben-Ur, Joseph and Newman, Bruce. 2002. Motives, Perceptions, and Voting Intention of
Voters in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Election. Psychology & Marketing 19 (12): 10471065. Retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/mar.10052/ (Accessed:
15 February 2015)
The article studies the voter behavior, motives, and perception of the electorate in the
2000 United States presidential elections through the use of surveys. The study uses principal
component analysis and regression analysis. The results show that the primary components of
voter intention were candidate and political party social imagery. The secondary component was
political issues. The third component was candidate and part personality and morality.
Carty, Kenneth R. and Eagles, Munroe. 1999. Do local campaigns matter? Campaign Spending,
the Local Canvass, and Party Support in Canada. Electoral Studies 18: 69-87.
Retrieved from: http://www.sciencespo.site.ulb.ac.be/dossiers_supports/texte-carty--eagles1.pdf (Accessed 3 February 2015).
This study about the federal elections in Canada was able to find out that in local
elections, campaign spending along with voter-contact activities of campaign volunteers can
affect vote shares. This study emphasizes how local areas are important arenas for elections
because there is a possibility for local campaigns to alter election results even though politicians
do not make this a priority. Again, incumbents spending has been noticed to be less effective
because at the start of the campaign, they are already known to the electorate and due to the law
of marginal returns, there is less room for them to grow.
Chun-Ping, Chang and Chien-Chiang, Lee. 2009. Does Candidates Advertising Spending Help
Winning?. Journal of Economic Policy Reform 12 (3): 201-218. Retrieved from:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=a9h&AN=43744007&site=ehost-live (Accessed: 30 January 2015)
This article focuses on the role that political expenditures spent on advertising played in
the campaigns of legislators in Taiwan in 2004. This cross-sectional study showed that
advertising spending has a positive influence on the vote shares of candidates. It asserts that
candidate spending is more effective than incumbent spending. First time election candidates can
be pushed from complete anonymity to popularity by using political advertising. It also states
that media coverage of elections and the candidates does not have the same effect as political
advertisements since the latter are controlled by candidates and can be a means for candidates to
show what they want voters to see. Also, while the study agrees with the idea that long-run
forces or social characteristics (such as sex, age, race, education, ideology, and political interest)
are significant in voting, short term forces (such as campaign spending) are also critical factors.
Cwalina, W., Falkowski, A., & Newman, B. 2011. Political Marketing: Theoretical and
Strategic Foundations. Journal of Political Marketing 11 (1-2): 30-80. Retrieved from:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377857.2012.642751.
February 2015)

(Accessed:

15

This article proposes on a new way to look at political marketing. The authors propose an
advanced theory of political marketing which looks at the processes behind campaigning. The
model combines the concepts of permanent political campaigns and marketing. It also notes the
presence of political traditions and the efficiency of developed democratic procedures. It
emphasizes how campaigns are more individualized, rather than party-based. Candidate image,
character, and policy pledges are the prime products offered in elections rather than party
behaviors and platforms.
Drazen, Allen and Eslava, Marcela. 2010. Electoral Manipulation via Voter-Friendly Spending:
Theory and Evidence. Journal of Development Economics: 92 (1): 39-52. Retrieved
from:http://econweb.umd.edu/~drazen/Working_Papers/voter_friendly_07162008.pdf
(Accessed: 31 January 2015).
The article defines electoral manipulation and proves that this is one strategy that
incumbents use to gain more votes. The electoral manipulation of incumbents means shifting the
spending towards the goods that voters as a whole prefer. The impact of this can influence the
voters into thinking that the incumbent candidate shares the same sentiments and priorities as
they do. When voters are uncertain about the incumbents spending priorities, voter-friendly
spending sends a message towards the electorate that the priorities of the incumbent and their
own are aligned. Thus, the voters will reward the incumbent with more votes.
Epstein, Gil S. and Franck, Raphael. 2007. Campaign Resources and Electoral Success:
Evidence from the 2002 French Parliamentary. Public Choice 131 (3/4), 469-489.
Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27698114. (Accessed on: 29 January
2015).
This article discusses if campaign resources are effective to achieve electoral success in a
cross-sectional study of the 2002 French Parliamentary elections. The results of the study suggest
that campaign contributions and political associations play a part in a candidates victory for the
first round of elections in the French parliamentary. For the second round, the candidates gender,
the support of the incumbent partys political machine, and actual spending are the factors that
matter to win. One striking finding that the authors have discovered is that candidates who did
not spend all the contributions and personal money that they have in their campaign budget are
more likely to win. This implies that there must be an optimal value of resources used to win in
an election, but it does not say where these resources must be spend on to have a greater chance
of winning.
Gerber, Alan S. 2004. Does Campaign Spending Work?. The American Behavioral Scientist 47
(5):
541-574.
Retrieved
from:

http://karlan.yale.edu/fieldexperiments/papers/00246.pdf
2015).

(Accessed:

February

The author uses field experiments to show how incumbent spending has marginal effects
while challenger spending is highly effective. It agrees with other literature that spending
depends on the closeness of the elections. It argues that when elections are in favor of the
incumbent, spending done by them varies from having no effect to having a negative effect.
rational spending strategies of incumbents can actually decrease the expected vote share.
Gius,

Mark. 2009. The Effects of Campaign Expenditures on Congressional

Elections. American Review of Political Economy 7 (1): 51-66. (Accessed: 18
September 2012). Retrieved from: http://search.proquest.com/docview/756025266 ?
accountid=141440

The author uses data collected from the congressional elections held in 2006 in the US. It
takes note of the party affiliation variable (percentage of registered voters who have the same
party affiliation as the candidate) and discovers that challengers who run in places where at least
50% of the electorate belong to the party of the incumbent have a very low chance of winning.
The study also states that there are four possible outcomes when using campaign spending in
elections: incumbent candidates can raise their vote share; voters who arent pleased with
incumbent performance; candidates can raise awareness about the upcoming elections; and one
candidate can raise awareness while another advertises his/herself, thus benefitting from the
former candidates actions. Lastly, the results of this study imply that an incumbent has a 15
point lead over challengers.
Institution for Electoral and Political Reform (IPER). 2002. The Voters Choice: Myself, A
Psychographic Study on the Voting Behavior of the Filipino People. IPER. Retrieved
from: http://iper.org.ph/documentation/Chapter%2001-09.pdf. (Accessed: 1 February
2015)
In the two cross-sectional studies conducted by the Institute for Political and Electoral
Reforms (IPER) in 1995 and 2003 in the Philippines, they described the perception of Filpinos
on the different aspects of the political and electoral process. They made use of quantitative and
qualitative methodologies. In 1995, they put focus on four determinants (popularity,
endorsement, characteristics of the candidate, and party program) that could point out how voters
choose who to vote for. The results showed that popularity and endorsement were the most
important factors. In 2003, IPER updated their study with different determinants (the benefit
factor, political machinery, popularity, and endorsement). The study found out that the most
important factor is the benefits that a candidate may give to the voter. IPER argues that voters
have become more rational in voting by choosing the candidate who they will benefit from the
most. Also, this provides a reason why voters accept money in exchange for their votes. Most
Filipino voters do not take note of the candidates political platform and long-term policy agenda.

Jacobson, Gary C. 1978. The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections.

American Political Science Review 72 (2): 469-491. Retrieved from:
http://www.jstor.org/stable&sid=21102524266707 (Accessed: 29 January 2015).
The author takes data from the 1972 and 19744 Congressional elections in the US and
argues that candidates spending varies on factors like the quality of their opponent. Higher
quality opponents make candidates spend more resources. Also, it agrees with the studies that
state that incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending because of the law of
marginal returns. Their returns to their spending are affected by the spending that they have spent
on the last elections, thus less returns.
Juholin, Elisa. 2001. Image or substance? Candidate or campaign? A case study of a presidential
election campaign in Finland. Corporate Communications 6 (3): 124-130. Retrieved
from:
http://search.proquest.com/pqcentral/docview/214190813/
13F7602A2FF463C24EE/1?accountid=47253 (Accessed: 31 January 2015).
The author asserts that the evolution of technology and increasingly consumerist culture
of the world has caused political campaigns to be influenced by principles of marketing. The
focus of the campaigns is not on the platforms and issues that the candidates stand for, but on the
image and personality of politicians. The study further states that how candidates spend their
resources have an effect on the results of the election. It argues that traditional party-oriented
campaigning has come to an end and candidates must shift their resources using a marketing
strategy in order to win.
Lees-Marshment, J. 2001. The Marriage of Politics and Marketing. Political Studies 49 (4):
692-712.
Retrieved
from:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?
sid=932d1c98-66b5-454d-ab7d-06455de3727c%40sessionmgr114&vid=4&hid=121.
(Accessed: 15 February 2015)
The article talks about how politics use marketing concepts and strategies. It identifies
three ways how politicians and parties act in politics: product-oriented, sales-oriented, or marketoriented. The first argues for its ideals and what it believes in. The second focuses on selling its
argument and ideals to voters. On the other hand, the latter is all about providing voter
satisfaction. The article shows how the methods, principles, and processes in marketing can be
applied in politics. For each orientation, the article gives examples of how marketing was used in
political campaigns even before the marriage of politics and marketing. It breaks down the steps
the candidates made and shows the results of the elections.
Partin, Randall W. 2002. Assessing the Impact of Campaign Spending In Governors'
Races. Political Research Quarterly 55 (1): 213-233. Retrieved from:
http://search.proquest.com/docview/215323703?accountid =141440. (Accessed: 29
January 2015).

This article tackles the effect of campaign spending in gubernatorial elections in the US
ranging from the years 1978 to 1994, totaling to 245 gubernatorial elections. The author argues
that election candidates use a strategic way to spend campaign resources in order to win. This
strategy is affected by the candidates approval rating, spending ceiling, state economy, and
overall probability of winning. The author finds that gubernatorial spending can dramatically
influence the results of the elections for all candidates, but asserts that candidates who belong to
a party can benefit more.
Rocamora, Joel. 2001. Campaign Finance and the Future of Philippine Political Parties.
Presented at the on Political Finance and Democracy in East Asia: The Use and Abuse of
Money in Campaigns and Elections in Seoul, South Korea. Retrieved from:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23599910/Campaign-Finance-and-the-Future-of-PhilippinePolitical-Parties#scribd (Accessed: 3 February 2015).
This article tells the history of the evolution of electoral campaigns, campaign finance,
political parties and trapos, political machinery, and electoral laws in the Philippines. This was
done while taking note of the advancements made in technology and mass media that had helped
turn campaigning into what it is today. Since it is costly to run in the Philippines, the article also
explains the dynamics that take place behind campaign finance and contributions. It can come
from legitimate sources (such as Chinese businessmen and campaign donations) and grey
money which comes from illegal economic activities (smuggling, jueteng drugs, and
prostitution). Campaign finances are not only used for the campaign itself, but also it may be
used on cheating through vote buying and dagdag-bawas.
Tavits, Margit. 2009. Geographically Targeted Spending: Exploring The Electoral Strategies of
Incumbent Governments. European Political Science Review 1 (1): 103-123.
Retrieved from: http://search.proquest.com/ docview/217756208?accountid=141440.
(Accessed: 30 January 2015).
The author talks about how incumbent candidates have somewhat like vote-purchasing
behavior because of their use of geographically targeted government spending prior to an
election. It uses data sets from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden and proves that these
countries also engage in clientelistic and pork barrel politics, although this is more common in
developing countries with a presidential system, weak parties, and electoral systems where
personal votes are prevalent. Results showed that incumbents spent on the area where it has a
stronghold. Moreover, it asserts that this is usually the re-election strategy of the incumbent
regardless of the system of government that the country has.
Teehankee, Julio. 2002. Electioral Politics in the Philippines. Electoral Politics in Southeast
and East Asia. 6: 149-202. Retrieved from: http://library.fes.de/pdffiles/iez/01361006.pdf (Accessed: 2 February 2015).

The author gives a brief overview of how elections work in the Philippines and how its
dynamics were affected and changed by the different constitutions and governments throughout
time. It also described how elections have been a tool to perpetuate elite rule and legitimize their
authority and mentions how powerful families dominate over the weak party system. Candidates
must come from these families, be rich, or popular to win elections. Chances for reforming
elections were beaten down by those in power for them to continue benefitting from it.
Villanueva, A. B. 1996. Parties and Elections in the Philippines. Contemporary South East
Asia 18 (2): 175-192. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25798332
(Accessed: 2 February 2015).
This article discusses the role of political parties in Philippine elections. Although the
Philippines is a multi-party system, the parties ideological stands are quite the same, leaving the
voters with no choice, but to find other ways to distinct one candidate from another.
Nevertheless, the Philippines voter turn-out is quite higher than other countries which leaves
room for Filipinos political maturity to grow. It also agrees that the ethno-linguistic or
regionalistc behavior could be a determinant of voting behavior, but states that more research
must be undertaken. In terms of religion, Iglesia ni Cristo has a strong influence on its member
voters, while the Catholic church has not much influence.
Scammel, M. 1999. Political Marketing: Lessons for Political Science. Political Studies 48:
718-739. Retrieved from: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9248.00228/
(Accessed: 15 February 2015)
The author discusses how political marketing is applied in politics. It argues that
marketing becomes a strategy of politicians because of economic rationality. It also shows the
contrast on how elections were conducted before with more grassroots participation to the
election that occurs today which relies more on media and marketing. Moreover, because of this,
the article explains how this caused the development of political parties that have no specific
ideology (catch-all parties).

Sidel, John. 1989. Beyond Patron-Client Relations: Warlordism and Local Politics in the
Philippines.
Kasarinlan
1:
19-30.
Retrieved
from:
http://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/kasarinlan/article/viewArticle/1049 (Accessed:
1 February 2015).
The author observes that the Philippines has been dominated by highly personalistic
politics and a political environment that thrives on the patron-client framework. The author
argues that this has proved to be an advantage only for persons of high socioeconomic status who
want to run for public office. These people have the resources that may be used to supply to
clients and the connections to get things done. Voters are left to choose among politicians that

come from the same social class and those from other social classes will have a hard time
winning which leaves only one sector of society represented in government.
Yi, David T. 2007. Election Campaign Resource Allocation. Public Choice 133 (1): 91-105.
Retrieved from: www.jstor.org/stable/27698172. (Accessed on: 31 January 2015).
The authors of this study explores the campaign resource allocation of candidates under
two different situations: when a candidate is congruent or if he/she has the same objectives as
his/her constituents and when a candidate is not congruent. It takes note of how the voters
perceive candidate and how this can affect election results. This study uses theoretical models
and is not based on actual data. Its findings state that when candidates are congruent with their
constituents, candidates need not allocate resources prior to election. However, when candidates
are less than congruent, they should exert more efforts in an election. When applied, this study
theorizes that candidates who run in areas where there is a heterogeneous population must exert
more effort to try to align with the voters and win elections.