Availability: Political finance data

To what extent is detailed political finance information available for public use?

DefinitionsResearch GuidanceQuestion sub-componentsIndicator Justification

Definitions and Identification

Political finance data should provide a comprehensive overview of the financial state of political parties and political campaigns, including their income, assets, and liabilities. Further, whether financial support comes from donations, membership fees, or public funding, data should show clearly from whom political parties, candidates, and third parties (that is, non-contestants who seek to influence the election result) raise money, how much money, and how that money is spent.

Political finance data should be available to members of a public for free, have appropriate language coverage, and include both regular updates and updates that are responsive to campaign schedules. If verification is not standard across all data, datasets should show which data have been verified and which have not.

Among other functions, it should be possible to use political finance data to verify that political parties, candidates, and third parties are not receiving financial support from any entities that may be banned under the country's laws (for example, this often includes foreign entities).

Examples

• The Political Parties Financing Surveillance Committee's webpage in Estonia offers an interactive interface where users can access comprehensive national political finance data. This dataset includes detailed information on donations, allocations, income, and expenses for each party or candidate. The dataset, updated quarterly, is available in machine-readable formats for easy exploration and download.

• In Canada, financial data includes detailed records of monetary contributions, loans, transfers, unpaid claims, and loan balances. The Elections Canada database identifies contributors by type—individuals, corporations, trade unions, and other entities—and connects them to their recipients, whether candidates or political entities. It also provides financial returns and annual statements of assets and liabilities for political parties.

Because countries have different election schedules and this data is responsive to campaigns, if the country you are assessing has not held a major election within the Barometer's period of assessment, please assess data in conjunction with the most recent major election and note this in the appropriate summary box.

Frequently, details of campaign accounts and donations will be recorded separately—for example, more granular details about donations may be located in a separate donations register.

Note: This indicator pairs with a related indicator that assesses governance of political finance data in order to compare frameworks and actual practice. While completing each one, you will likely discover further information that will help answer the sub-questions of the other, so it is suggested that you work on the pair together.

Starting points

• Sources:

  • Transparency International's Integrity Watch includes political integrity information for at least seventeen countries in Europe; depending on the country, this may include political finance data, interest and asset information, and lobbying data. Time ranges covered vary by country; for some countries data may no longer be up-to-date, but can still provide a useful starting point.

  • For background information about whether a country has laws or regulations providing for public funding of parties or candidates, explore the “public funding” section of IDEA’s Political Finance Database (questions 28–37), which covers 181 countries.

• Search:

  • The site of the country's relevant oversight agencies, such as its elections commission, registrar of political donations, etc.

• Consult:

  • Investigative journalists who report on political finance or money in politics more broadly, particularly any who appear to be using aggregate political finance data.

  • Officials of civil society organizations that advocate for transparency and accountability regarding money in politics.

What to look for?

To complete the assessment for this question you will need to access and explore the available data. This may involve running queries on datasets to check the variety of fields included.

Look for evidence that can answer the following questions:

• What financial and non-financial information does the data include? For example, does it include information about financial contributions, income, assets and liabilities, spending, and in-kind or non-financial support?

• What information about donors and donations does the data include? For example, does it include not only donation amounts but identifying details of donors, such as names, residence, occupation, employer?

• Who does the data cover? Does it cover all political parties, candidates, and third parties? Does one of these categories have notable differences with regard to the comprehensiveness of the information available?

• Is there evidence of missing data, assessed first against the related governance framework, if that exists, or in the context of the data in front of you and your local knowledge?

Show/hide supporting questions

Existence

• Is this data available online in any form?

  • Data is not available online.

    Supporting questions: Are there other offline ways to access this data in the country? (e.g., attending an office to inspect it).

  • Data is available, but not as a result of government action.

    Supporting questions: If government is not providing access to data, how is this data available? Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.

  • Data is available from government, or because of government actions.

    Supporting questions: Please provide a URL(s) for where this data can be found.

• Extent of existence:

• How nationally comprehensive is the data assessed for this indicator? (The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality., The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities., The data assessed provides national coverage.)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Which locality or localities does this data cover?

  If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Please explain your response.

  If The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without data available or with data of a lesser quality. or The data assessed covers one or more localities and is representative of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.: Please provide supporting URL(s) as necessary.

• Existence summary:

• Please summarize your answers to the preceding existence sub-questions, including the extent of existence. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the existence sub-questions for this indicator.

  Supporting questions

  Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

Elements

• Data fields and specifics (I):

• The data contains details of financial contributions for each party or candidate, including donations, public funding, and membership dues (where relevant). (No, Partially, Yes) Note: membership dues are typically relevant to parties and not candidates. Additionally, some countries don’t provide public funding to parties or candidates.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data about different kinds of financial contributions are located.

• The data contains details of income for each party or candidate. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where income details are located.

• The data contains details of the spending of each party or candidate. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where spending details are located.

• The data contains details of assets and liabilities of each party or candidate. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where data about assets and liabilities is located.

• The data contains details of in-kind and non-financial support donated to each party or candidate. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where in-kind and non-financial details are located.

• The data contains financial details of third parties. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Yes” only if data includes information about both income and spending.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: What financial details are included?

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where financial details of third parties are located.

• Data fields and specifics (II):

• The data contains details of the timing and amounts of donations linked to donors. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where donation details are located.

• The data contains first and last name for each donor. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where donor names are located.

• The data contains detailed information about each donor, including place of residence, occupation, and employer. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where donor details are located.

• The data includes unique identifiers for each donor. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where donor identifiers are located.

• The data contains details of donations to third parties. (No, Partially, Yes) For example, this may include: donor’s first and last name, place of residence, occupation, employer; the timing and amounts of donations linked to donors; etc. For a “Yes” answer, the data must contain clear identifying information for donors.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: What donation details are included?

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where donation details of third parties are located.

• Data publication:

• The data is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is accessible without any cost, unlike cases where accessing datasets requires a one-off payment or a subscription fee.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

• The data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes) This means that the data is provided under a license that clearly states that anyone may reuse it, with minimal restrictions on its reuse (e.g., attribution, share-alike).

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If No: If there are explicit restrictions placed on reuse of the data, briefly describe those.

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: If the data is provided with an explicit open license, please provide the name of that license and/or a link to it.

• The data is published with sufficient language coverage to make it accessible to all or almost all members of the public. (No, Partially, Yes) Assess this sub-question using the list of languages provided by your regional coordinator. If the country has only one official language (or de facto official language) and no national languages but there are other languages in use in the country, answer “Partially” if the data is available only in a single language. If the country has multiple official, national, or co-official regional languages, answer “Yes” if the data is available in the majority of these languages.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please briefly describe the language coverage available.

• There are accessible and open official tools available to help users explore data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Partially” if tools make it possible to get at extracts of data without having to download a full dataset. Answer “Yes” if there is an interactive tool that displays user-filtered extracts of the data to answer simple questions without downloading data at all.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: What are the main barriers to accessibility and usability?

  If Partially or Yes: Do these tools rely on AI or machine-learning tools? For example, as interfaces. Please briefly explain.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s).

• The data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes) If you have also assessed an associated governance framework, evaluate timeliness by comparing against the relevant schedule laid out in that framework. If there is no such schedule, look first for other indications of an expected schedule (e.g., does the site say the data is updated once a year?), and then examine the frequency, regularity, and recency of updates.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: If only some of the relevant data is updated, please explain which.

  If Partially or Yes: When was the most recent update to this data?

• Historical data is available that allows users to track change over time. (No, Partially, Yes)

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: For what time period(s) (i.e., start and end dates) is data available?

• The data is provided in machine-readable format(s). (No, Partially, Yes) Assess the datasets you have provided in response to this indicator’s sub-questions; if there are multiple datasets, use the best example you can locate in terms of availability of open data. Note this selection in the elements summary box and then also answer the following sub-question (on bulk downloading) with respect to that specific dataset.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially: What prevents you from assessing this data as fully machine-readable?

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide a comma separated list of the formats available

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where machine-readable data is located.

• The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “No” if it's only possible to access individual records. Answer “Partially” if it's possible to export extracts of the data. Answer “Yes” if there are bulk downloads or APIs providing access to the whole dataset without financial, technical, or legal barriers.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide the URL(s) where bulk download access is available or described.

  If Partially or Yes: If bulk access is provided through an API, please provide a link to where the API is described.

• Negative scoring:

• This information is missing required data. (There is no evidence of data gaps., There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing., There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.) In cases where the indicator itself identifies a dataset(s) to assess against—or a separate governance indicator has asked you to determine data requirements of a relevant governing framework—assess against that. In cases where there is no such identified dataset(s) or related governance indicator, please assess based on: the parameters laid out in the publication of the information (e.g., are some fields entirely empty when they shouldn't be?); your local knowledge (e.g., if the data is supposed to include information for all public officials, does the number of total entries seem reasonable?); and any broader research you may have done for this topic (e.g., have media articles decried the incompleteness of this data?). Note: this sub-question examines omissions only of mandated data; so if, for example, laws do not require the reporting of data below certain thresholds, that data is not considered “missing.”

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If There is evidence that a portion of mandated data is missing. or There is evidence of widespread omissions in mandated data.: Please briefly explain.

• Nonscoring:

• There is evidence of use of this data. (No, Partially, Yes) Answer “Yes” for more than one example; answer “Partially” for a single example.

  Supporting questions (conditional)

  If Partially: Please explain your “Partially” response.

  If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, who is using this data? E.g., government, civil society, private sector, media, academia, others.

  If Partially or Yes: In the example(s) provided, for what purpose(s) is the data being used? E.g., for accountability, to improve access for marginalized populations, to influence policy for equity or inclusion, for red flag analysis, etc.

  If Partially or Yes: Please provide URL(s) for example(s).

• Elements summary:

• Please summarize your answers to the preceding element sub-questions. [Open Text] Drawing on the research you have conducted and the evidence you have gathered for this section, describe what you have found (or not found) when answering the element sub-questions for this indicator.

  Supporting questions

  Please provide the URL(s) for the evidence that supports the summary provided.

The United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) calls for transparency regarding the role of money in politics. Transparent campaign and party financing is critical for understanding whose interests shape parties, ballot initiatives, and the decisions of specific public officials. Donating to a politician or political cause is widely considered a form of political participation; however, there is also widespread concern about the effects of money in politics—with particular questions regarding who donates to parties and campaigns, how much, and how that affects political outcomes.

To support political finance transparency efforts, this indicator thus investigates the campaign and party finance data that countries make available.