Digital innovation in electoral campaigns: the case of microcredit in Podemos

Abstract

Crowdfunding and micro-donations for funding politicalcampaigns have been extensively studied, especially in the US.However, digital participatoryfinancing in Europe, with adifferent regulatory context and relevant public funding, hasbeen investigated less. This article analyses the effects of aninnovative and digital-native electoral campaignfinancing tool:the microcredit. Microcredits consist of small“civil loans”that apolitical party requests from sympathizers tofinance the party’selectoral campaign. Based on the case study of the Spanish partyPodemos–thefirst one to implement it–for the period of 2015–2021, we use official data and party documents to explore theconsequences of microcredit. We argue,first, that microcredits(and partyfinancing) should be considered another way todifferentiate challenger parties from traditional ones. Second,there is a link between the number and amount of microcreditsand the political context, not limited to good electoralexpectations but also to the polarized political context. Third,microcredits change the structure of campaign funding. Finally,we point out a regulation problem that may deter other partiesfrom adopting this mechanism and present different legalproblems (monitoring, data protection, or potential corruption),showing the regulatory issues for adapting to the digitalization ofpolitics.