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Voter abstention (non-voting behavior) is considered one of the symptoms of political distrust. According to empirical studies, both new and established democracies are exhibiting rising or steady non-voting behavior. This behavior poses a threat to representative democracy in general, but it is particularly detrimental to new democracies seeking to consolidate their democracy. While a bulk of studies have investigated the causal relationship and correlation between political trust, voter turnout and abstention (apathy) in established democracies, little light has been shed on the same in Africa and, to my knowledge, none in Tanzania. Several factors explain this discrepancy, including the relative newness of democracy in Africa and the deficiency of panel data to trace the trust and electoral participation levels over time. However, the newness of democracy in Africa necessitates efforts to routinely gauge the functioning of political institutions, the degrees of citizen (dis)trust in them and implications on citizens' electoral participation to determine the weaknesses or strengths of such institutions as well as promote citizen participation. Thus, this study contributes to that goal by examining Tanzanians' dis(trust) in political institutions as a significant predictive factor for their propensity to vote as measured by voter turnout. To execute this task, the study utilizes Afrobarometer survey data for Tanzania collected over a tenyear period (2010-2020) and complements it with a review of election reports and relevant documentation. The findings reveal that political distrust is on the rise in Tanzania, contributing partly to high voter abstention in the most recent elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Political marketing is a relatively new approach to analysing political activity that draws upon management marketing assumptions to describe political behaviour. These assumptions are explicitly grounded in neoclassical economic assertions about behaviour. In political science these assumptions are utilised by orthodox rational choice theory. Thus, political marketing can be located within this perspective. Rational choice provides a series of analytic models through which ontological implications can be derived, and predictions made. Yet, the political marketing apporach seeks to build upon orthodox rational choice accounts, by introducing a normative element to this perspective, prescribing the internalisation of these assumptions in order to achieve the desired objective. Further, this normative aspect claims that the adoption of marketing improves the democratic process. However, rational choice is an analytical "toolkit" which does not seek to make normative claims. Indeed, normative arguments are inconsistent with rational choice, which seeks to provide a scientific, value-free approach to political analysis, and, consequently, the analytical and normative aspects of political marketing need to be rendered explicit and such normative aspects challenged. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]