Money in Politics Conference

Abstract:

The research area: Money plays an important role in modern democratic politics.Private donations to political campaigns affect which politicians are elected andtheir behavior in office. Organized interests spend billions each year to fundlobbying campaigns aimed at shaping the decisions made by elected politicians.This potentially biases public policy towards actors and businesses who are able tochannel money towards political parties, their candidates, and politicians holdingpublic office. For many years, this field of research – commonly known as “moneyin politics” – was purely theoretical. As a result, there are still many unknowns asto how, exactly, money shapes politics. Recent years, however, have seen a surgein empirical research on this topic, partly due to an explosion in qualitative andquantitative data availability. This has pushed the boundaries of knowledge,consistently producing publications in the best outlets in political science andeconomics. Within this emerging field, this conference seeks to increase ourknowledge on how money shapes politics, the selection of political candidates, thelegislative process, and the character of subsequent public policies.Scientific focus: The conference will bring together top researchers from the USand Europe, thereby bridging two research communities in an otherwise highlyfragmented field. In doing so, we will not only build relationships with potentialinternational collaborators, the conference will also provide a service to the studyof a topic that is important for democracy.