#12066. TRENDS: Following the Money? How Donor Information Affects Public Opinion about Initiatives

September 2026publication date
Proposal available till 15-06-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Sociology and Political Science;
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
FreeFreeFreeFree
2350 $1200 $1050 $900 $
Contract №12066.1 Contract №12066.2 Contract №12066.3 Contract №12066.4
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)

More details about the manuscript: Science Citation Index Expanded or/and Social Sciences Citation Index
Abstract:
Citizens are typically uninformed about politics and know little about issues at stake in direct democracy elections. Government efforts to inform electorates include requiring donors to initiate campaigns to report their activities and then circulating such donor information to citizens. What effects does donor information have on citizens’ opinions? We conduct a survey experiment where respondents express opinions about initiatives in a real-world election. They receive donor information, party cues, policy information from a nonpartisan expert, or no additional information. We find that donor information influences citizens’ opinions in the aggregate, with effects comparable to those of party cues and policy information. However, donor information has negligible effects on uninformed citizens, who have difficulty inferring donors’ policy interests and connecting them to their own. These results underscore the potential benefits of efforts to inform electorates via disclosure laws and highlight disparities in their effectiveness for informed and uninformed citizens.
Keywords:
campaign finance disclosure; direct democracy; donors; party cues; policy information; political knowledge

Contacts :
0