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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]

The Nigerian political system has experienced a high level of election-related violence at various epochs of its development. The incidences of violence during elections in Nigeria have resulted in the loss of lives and posed a threat to electoral participation and political stability. The study surveyed the perceptions of Nigerians on the effect of violence on the participation of eligible voters in the Nigerian electoral process. It attempts to ascertain the cause of the low turnout of voters in the 2019 general elections. The study adopted the survey research design and used data from 1,200 respondents selected from six local government areas representing the six geo-political zones. Simple percentages and Chi-Square statistical techniques were employed to test and determine the degree of association intrinsic to the stated hypotheses. The findings from the study show a positive relationship between violence and alienation. Thus, political violence perpetrated by political opponents and parties (among others) during elections results in the alienation of voters from the electoral process. Consequently, it is opined that the federal and state governments should put on modalities to mitigate the incidence of violence during elections. Also, perpetrators of electoral violence should be prosecuted and sanctioned accordingly.

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The Nigerian political system has experienced a high level of election-related violence at various epochs of its development. The incidences of violence during elections in Nigeria have resulted in the loss of lives and posed a threat to electoral participation and political stability. The study surveyed the perceptions of Nigerians on the effect of violence on the participation of eligible voters in the Nigerian electoral process. It attempts to ascertain the cause of the low turnout of voters in the 2019 general elections. The study adopted the survey research design and used data from 1,200 respondents selected from six local government areas representing the six geo-political zones. Simple percentages and Chi-Square statistical techniques were employed to test and determine the degree of association intrinsic to the stated hypotheses. The findings from the study show a positive relationship between violence and alienation. Thus, political violence perpetrated by political opponents and parties (among others) during elections results in the alienation of voters from the electoral process. Consequently, it is opined that the federal and state governments should put on modalities to mitigate the incidence of violence during elections. Also, perpetrators of electoral violence should be prosecuted and sanctioned accordingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on non-voting behavior and which depart from social perspectives have long been stagnated due to the dominance of analysis that puts systems, institutionalization, political mechanisms and participation as the main viewpoints of the studies. This study using social perspectives is useful to explain why voters were not present at polling stations during the Medan 2018 Election. It elaborates the social aspects that influenced non-voting behavior in the urban area of Medan in North Sumatra, Indonesia during the 2018 gubernatorial election. Utilizing mix- method strategies, instead of citing social aspects as a mere research context, this article argues that social aspects in the form of social cleavages worked behind the silent apathy, namely apathy that was implicitly indicated by voters who were not present at polling stations. Social cleavages including ethnicity, religion and gender indicated a paradox since they—with the exception of gender—were used by candidates as the main campaign substance. On the other hand, large numbers of people showed disinterest in these social cleavages during the election. This article explains why abstained voters hid their disinterest behind their excuses for not being present at the polling stations for economic (working activities) and other reasons.

Voter turnout is the springboard of election as an election is to democracy and it is a major yardstick to measure democratic performance. Since 2003, the Nigerian democracy has been underperforming and in the recent election, the South Eastern region of the country has witnessed a sharp increase in voter abstention. This study investigates the underlying factors responsible for the increasing level of voter abstention in South Eastern Nigeria. The exercise engaged an extensive literature review, a questionnaire survey, descriptive analysis aided result interpretations, and thus, it identified twenty factors summarized into eight factors using Principal Component Analysis (a statistical procedure that uses an orthogonal transformation to convert a set of observations of possibly correlated variables into a set of values of linearly uncorrelated variables) that influence voter abstention in the region. Hence, the examination finds that socioeconomic status, social trust and weak institutional framework, unemployment, registration challenges and demographic factor, corruption and inadequate security, deception and intimidation, social connection and poverty influence voter abstention in the region. The study notes that the increasing level of voter abstention could impact negatively on the Nigerian democracy and contends that economic hardship, governance failure, and weak electoral institutions characterized by malpractices in the electoral process disenfranchises many citizens from exercising their right to vote. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Discusses the link between economic salience and differential abstention in presidential elections. Fluctuations in the determinants of the voting decision; Mobilization of Black, working-class and unemployed individuals in the 1984 and 1992 presidential elections; Previous research on economic voting.