Sub-representação feminina e financiamento de campanhas: a eleição de 2014 para a assembleia gaúcha

Abstract

Political representation of women is a global issue, with a number of mechanisms that seek to increase gender equality. Despite efforts, this representation is still low in several countries, including Brazil. Several hypotheses about the causes of this underrepresentation are pointed out in the literature, among them, the financing of unequal electoral campaigns between men and women. The purpose of this paper is to determine the importance of financing campaigns for electoral success and to analyze the distribution of resources to candidates and candidates, in order to assess how women are disadvantaged in the vote race. We try to understand the role of public financing and private financing in the candidacy of women, with the hypothesis that women are disadvantaged in the collection of both. To that end, we analyzed the case of the 2014 election for a Legislative Assembly in Rio Grande do Sul. Using data from the TSE website, we observed the amount of revenue declared by the candidates, categorizing them according to revenue source. From the analysis of the pertinent literature and the data collected, our hypothesis was partially proven. We conclude that there is a correlation between the amount of funds raised and the number of votes received. In addition, women are disadvantaged in the collection of resources, obtaining significant under-financing, mainly not private financing. However, there is a over-billing in the distribution of the party fund for female candidates in the 2014 Rio Grande do Sul election. However, this category does not have expressiveness in the final product of collection, which leads, not generally, to underfunding women candidates, harming their chances of electoral success.