Gendered patterns in candidates’ campaign fundraising: The case of Italy
| Author | Francesca Feo,Chiara Fiorelli,Daniela R Piccio |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211049106 |
| Published date | 01 January 2023 |
| Date | 01 January 2023 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/01925121211049106
International Political Science Review
2023, Vol. 44(1) 43 –58
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/01925121211049106
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Gendered patterns in candidates’
campaign fundraising:
The case of Italy
Francesca Feo
Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy
Chiara Fiorelli
University of Rome Sapienza, Italy
Daniela R Piccio
University of Turin, Italy
Abstract
The lack of financial resources is an often-cited hurdle for women pursuing political careers. However,
empirical analysis of the dynamics of the private funding of women candidates and its potential implications
for their political careers is still scant, particularly for countries outside the anglophone regions. This
paper contributes to the scholarly debate by focusing on the gendered patterns in campaign fundraising
in Italy, where radical changes to the party funding regime and multiple reforms to the electoral laws may
have changed the structure of opportunity for fundraising by women candidates. We analyse patterns of
private funding for men and women candidates in four national elections between 1996 and 2018. Our
analysis, triangulated with semi-structured interviews with women candidates, shows that differences exist
in fundraising patterns between male and female candidates in Italy. It reveals differences in the quality of
candidates’ fundraising networks and confirms that political affiliation (to right-wing parties) and incumbency
have an effect on the amount of donations received, thus granting women candidates greater access to
private donations.
Keywords
Gender gap, Italian politics, political fundraising, private donations, women candidacy
Corresponding author:
Daniela R Piccio, Dipartimento di Culture, Politica e Società, Università di Torino, Lungo Dora Siena 100, Torino,
Italy.
Email: danielaromee.piccio@unito.it
1049106IPS0010.1177/01925121211049106International Political Science ReviewFeo et al.
research-article2021
Special Issue Article
44 International Political Science Review 44(1)
Introduction
The importance for women candidates of having funds to run in elections is undisputed. Research
has shown that it is particularly difficult for women to raise funds, especially at the earliest stage
of their campaigns, which often ends up preventing their inclusion at the core of political decision-
making (Carroll and Sanbonmatsu, 2013). However, empirical analysis of the patterns of private
funding for women candidates and the potential implications of this for their political careers is still
scant, particularly for countries outside the anglophone regions, where private forms of political
fundraising play a marginal role compared to state funds (but see Buckley and Mariani in this
Special Issue).
In this article we contribute to this research agenda and widen the scope of existing research
through a case study on the gendered patterns of private funding for national candidates in Italy.
Italy is a case of particular interest because the country has recently experienced radical changes in
its party funding regime, repealing all direct public subsidies to political actors, who now have to
rely almost entirely on private funds. This reform has had a negative impact on the financial assets
of Italian parties (Piccio, 2020) and may increase the importance of individual fundraising for male
and female candidates. What differences can be observed in the fundraising patterns of men and
women candidates in Italy? Which factors play a role in influencing candidates’ fundraising?
To answer these questions, our enquiry moves from the key debates that we identified in the
existing research on the gendered dynamics of private funding: the existence of a gender funding
gap; the reliance on a different network of support for different groups of candidates; and the role
of political affiliation and incumbency in influencing women candidates’ fundraising capacities.
We base our analysis on an original dataset including all private donations disclosed by individual
candidates (male and female) who ran for four national parliamentary elections between 1996 and
2018. In addition, we triangulate the quantitative analysis with semi-structured interviews con-
ducted with a pool of women ‘top fundraisers’, to gain a more thorough understanding of women
candidates’ fundraising strategies, their access to resources, and the opportunities and hurdles they
experience when competing for office.
Our results partially confirm the existence of a gender funding gap and corroborate the exist-
ence of differences in the donors’ network of male and female candidates. Moreover, as empha-
sized by previous research, incumbency favours women’s fundraising capacity and party affiliation
is a relevant factor: not only did right-wing and centre-right candidates raise more and larger dona-
tions, but left-wing and centre-left candidates also suffered from the budgetary constraints imposed
by the 2014 reform. We conclude by emphasizing that the gender funding gap is also linked to the
persistence of a gender imbalance in political recruitment, which inevitability points to the respon-
sibility of political parties in their role as gatekeepers.
Political campaign fundraising from a gender perspective: the
state of the art
Money is crucial for being able to campaign successfully. As Burrell has argued, ‘how well candi-
dates perform on election day is a direct function of how much money they raise and spend’ (2003:
73). This situation is commonly acknowledged to have important implications for diversity and
inclusivity at the different stages of the election cycle. Indeed, groups that occupy more marginal
positions in society and have fewer forms of capital usually find the costs of running for office
prohibitive and, when they run, have a harder time getting elected (see Murray in this Special
Issue). Women fall within these groups. A consequence of the persistence of the public/private
gender divide that relegates women mainly to the private sphere (Ballington and Kahane, 2014;
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