Assessing the Contexts Affecting the Financial Costs of Parliamentary Elections Iran (Focusing on the Tenth Term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly Elections Rasht Township)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the Election Campaign Finance of parliamentary elections in Iran. The spatial scope of this study was the financial expenses of the candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly in the tenth election of Rasht Township in Guilan province. This study was conducted in the period of spring 2020 to the end of spring 2021. The main question that the researcher sought to answer is: What are the factors affecting the financial costs of the parliamentary elections in Iran? The mixed method was used to achieve the research objectives - distributed a questionnaire with a sample size of 379 people and semi-in-depth interviews with ten activists and parliamentary candidates. The results of the study showed that the most important factors influencing the methods of financing parliamentary elections in Iran are. This factors are historical contexts and political culture, political knowledge of voters, MP-citizen linkage, citizens' attitudes toward the electoral system, number and variety of sponsors and their motives, the type of political system, social and political divisions, and the economic situation of society. Among the mentioned factors, the MP-citizen linkage and the type of political system have the most impact on how the parliamentary elections are financed.